Emigrating

debtornate

Hello everyone!

This is my first post on here, (in fact on any forum anywhere!). I know the topic doesn't sound very debt free wannabe, but I wondered if anyone had any information that could help me.
Cutting a long story short, the company I work for has a job going in Paris, (at the airport), and the missus has always fancied moving to France, (after watching far too many of those buying a house abroad type TV programs!), and frankly so have I - even my 9 year old daughter seems keen on it, despite haveing to make new friends and go to a French school and do lessons in French.
Anyway what I really need to know is this - I'm currently in debt, not just up to my eyeballs, but way past them, (£80K) all on credit cards. What happens if I do relocate to France - can I keep the cards on over here, or would I have to pay them all back and try to get new credit in France, which probably wouldn't be possible now I'm so far in debt?
If I couldn't keep them on over here, or transfer them, would I then have to go bankrupt when I couldn't pay them back and if so what implications/problems would this throw up for French citizenship?
Anybody who has any info. I'd be very grateful!

lynzpower

To be honest with you, I woudnt have a clue, although someone else will be along in a minute who might.

Is the job a payrise? Whats the cost of living out there? Higher than where you are or not? Does your wife work? If so, would she be able to find a job out there? Hows your language skills? Ivew watched plenty of these programmes too, and without sounding like im pi**ing on your parade, most of the couples on it get into debt BECAUSE of the move. To compound this situation could end up being a nightmare.

When does the job close?

And :hello: you are very welcome here!!

kar

Do you own your own home? If so what's the equity in it?

If you do own a house I would sell up and pay off all the profits off the cards. Then relocate and rent over in Paris. I don't think there's a problem with keeping your cc's. France is part of the EU after all but i'm not to sure about how happy the company's are to send statements abroad.

Why do you want french citizenship? With a UK passport you can do everything in france the locals do.

Rachel71

Hello

I'm generally a lurker but thought I could give some advice on this as I live part of the year in Paris. I think that you should find out from your company your net pay. In particular, whether you would be seconded by your company or would be employed locally: if you are seconded your company can apply for a clearance whereby you pay social security in the uk (ie national insurance) rather than french cotisations, which are very high (approx 25% of salary). I suspect that your company would do this if possible as its also much cheaper for them. You still get access to healthcare etc through an eu arrangement although I don't think you build up other social security benefits eg pension in france. The clearance is limited for a period of time though, usually three years. https://www.impots.gouv.fr will give you an idea of how much tax you would need to pay. In terms of costs of living, I find Paris comparable with London, the only things which seem to me to be cheaper are going out, the equivalent of council tax and public transport. If you want to get an idea of accommodation, https://www.pap.fr is a good source. (I'm assuming you speak french).

In terms of credit cards, I don't really know but would think that the best thing would be to keep the cards in the uk. My banks (smile and nationwide) were fine with this. You may find it difficult to get credit (or open any financial product in the UK) after leaving. France has much less of a debt culture than the UK, and I think that its really quite difficult to take out loans/credit cards. (I don't actually think that credit cards exist here although I'm not 100% sure about this - there is carte bleue which either is like a debit card (money taken out of your account straight away) or is taken out all at the end of the month).

As one of the other posters said, why do you want french nationality? I think you're entitled to apply for french nationality if you have lived here for 5 years, but I don't think there's any real advantage over a passport from anywhere else in the eu other than being able to vote in france (although I suppose if you're here long term you would probably want to vote here rather than in the uk). I don't know much about this - I have a couple of american friends who have done it though - I think you need to have a police check from your home country though.

Before I started living in Paris I bought a book called "living and working in France" which has lots of useful info, I found it very useful (I have no link to the book) (there's lots of similar books though).

Hope this is useful.
Rachel

Annie_Fanny

debtornate - I know I am talking out of line but are you going to be addressing your debt? You say you are up to your eyeballs in debt does this mean you are struggling to make the payments? I think a move to France would be lovely and oh so romantic BUT you know what this move will mean....the wife will want new clothes, new this, new that, your daughter will want a new etc etc...the bottom line is can you afford to go to France? £80k is a lot of money. In my opinion this needs to be addressed before you go anywhere....

Let us know how you get on!

Good luck!

Annie

debtornate

:mad: I'd almost finished writing a long reply to everyone who's replied to me and for some reason the website logged me off and I lost my reply! Doh, oh well, I'll have another go in a minute!

lynzpower

ooh glad you came back

debtornate

Here goes again - lets hope I get this out before it disappears up its own nether region again!

Hi again and thanks to everyone who replied!

I would have replied earlier, but I've had my head stuck in books and websites looking for more info.

Lynzpower Nope, the job's not a payrise, I get the same money as I do at the moment. Whether that leaves me better or worse off remains to be seen, but as far as I know the cost of living is comparable to over here.

As to the missus, she does work (part time) at the moment, but as she hasn't had the get-up-and-go to learn any french, (despite her insistence that she's serious about wanting to go), she'll be virtually unemployable out there. She's convinced she'll manage to find some sort of work, using what she thinks is her charm, but frankly I'm extremely doubtful. She keeps referring to her friends who just moved to Spain, saying that one of them hardly speaks any spanish, but he knows far more spanish than she knows french and they're going to run a gite/b & b business, so they probably don't need that much spanish! Anyway, back to france, like I say she'd probably be unemployable, so that's her wages out of the equation straight away.
You're right about the couples on those programmes though, they do seem to get themselves in a mess, but hopefully, cos I'd have a proper permanent job out there (i'll be doing exactly the same job as I do here for the same company), rather than some form of holiday home raised from a ruin type scheme, I might be able to avoid most of those pitfalls. I'm not sure how long the vacancy will be open, but the more I seem to find out, the more questions it raises, so I might well miss the boat!

Kar Yeah, I own (some) of my own home. Cutting a long story short when we bought it I was on the dole, so we bought it through a shared equity scheme, half rent, half mortgage. We intended to buy the other half, but when house prices started to rocket, we thought there would probably be another property crash, like in the 80's. Unfortunately house prices kept on going and going up and up. At the moment I'm still not sure if it's a good time to buy the rest or not, (not that I can afford it, and if I move it'd be pointless!) Anyway the equity would be about 35k after conveyancing costs, which although it'll make a sizeable dent in the debt, won't pay it off.
I'm not really sure why I wanted french citizenship, other than a desire to commit myself fully to moving there and being properly french. Still, it's a good idea reducing the debt with the equity in the house even if it doesn't clear it I guess, unless I'm staying put in the UK that is, in which case, it's possibly better to keep a roof over our heads!

Annie Fanny I know what you're saying, it looks like I'm trying to run away from my problem to a fairytale new and better life abroad, but I'm not, really - I'd be taking the debt with me and anyway, I'm not sure that working in the baggage hold of an airport is all that romantic! That said I am considering moving to France as I think it offers a better way of life than the UK seems to do at the moment! As to the missus and the sprog wanting more stuff, they don't really need to move abroad to do that - they'll always want new stuff! It would be nice to pay off the debt before I went, but at that rate, I'd be moving to France for my retirement!

Rachel71 Thanks for all the advice and the websites, which look really helpful.
The thing about the social security sounds like a great idea - could save quite a substantial amount ove 3 years, I'll definitely look into that!
I must have read your mind cos over the weekend, I went out and bought the exact same book you recommended! I've read some of it and calculated that even with the 25% social and the tax, I'll be about 200 quid a month better off. Unfortunately, I have to set that off against the missus' loss of earnings and the probable loss of child benefit/tax credit.
The most difficult thing seems to be to get a mortgage as you seem to be allowed dedt repaymnets up to 1/3 of your (gross?) salary. Which means with the debt I have, I wouldn't be able to get a mortgage. If I used the equity from the sale of our house over here to pay off the credit cards with the highest monthly payments, I reckon I could get a mortgage for 330 quid a month, which probably won't buy me anything habitable - so I'd probably have to rent.
The good news with the credits cards is that all but 2 of them said I could keep the cards. Of the two that said I couldn't, one of them said they'd probably just cancel the card, but allow me to keep making the normal payments. I need to go back to the other one who said no and ask them if they'd be prepared to do the same!

Anyway, like I said, thanks to everyone for all the advice and help. It's really nice just to be able to communicate with other people and do that problem shared, problem halved thing, (or in this case problem quartered!).
I still seem to have loads of questions left at the moment and just thought of another one - what happens if you're english, living permanently in france and find you can't pay your debts - who gets the money first, the french or the english - can you do an IVA in france and can you go bankrupt and if you do go bankrupt, is there any reason you can't stay in france?
I need to go and have a drink/lie down cos my brain's starting to hurt!:D

Cheers

Phil

LittleJo

HiPhil, i
It is good to see someone sit down and actually reply to and thank people who have tried to help.
Hope it all works out for you.
Jo