Sold in France & € to £

911Matt

Hi all, I've sold a property in France and the monies are held in the Notaire's account. What is the best method of getting the proceeds of sale transferred into the UK. I bank with the Halifax and to have it transferred direct would mean institutions each take their piece of the pie, in handling costs, exchange rate, commission etc etc.

What's the best method or company to use to have the money transferred back into the UK?

Many thanks
Matthew

AnotherJoe

Try posting in the savings and investments forum as really this isnt a house buying/selling issue, the money could have come from any source. Various Fx brokers are mentioned in there from time to time.

Smi1er

I have used Transfermate several times.

eddddy

Do you have a French bank account?

I would be tempted to transfer it to your own French bank account, and from there to an FX broker (perhaps like the one sm1ler mentions above) - as FX brokers tend to give good rates.


I'm not sure whether the Notaire would transfer the money direct to the FX broker, because...

1. Anti-money laundering rules (because the destination account isn't in your name)

2. The FX broker would probably want the payment made with a payment reference that matches their auditing system
The Notaire might want the payment made with a payment reference that matches their auditing system

And you can't make one payment with 2 different payment references

AlexMac

I was very happy with "Moneycorp" who repatriated my Euros at a much better rate than my Bank, following the sale of a little flat in Italy several years ago. As the MSE article on FX brokers states, your money's not protected if they go bust while holding your cash, but Companies House shows that they've been trading since 1962, so I doubt they're flakey.

knightstyle

We have just done exactly that, Sold our French house in December '18. Notaire transferred the money straight away into our French bank account. We then used Currencies Direct to transfer the money into our UK bank account. We then put it into a Virgin savings account to get interest till we buy a UK house.
We have used CD many times to send money to and from France over the past 25 years and never had any problems but it is worth noting that some other companies have gone bust and your money is not protected, so use a bank to bank transfer, lower exchange rate plus fees, if you want to be completely risk free. Or you could split your money into several lots and transfer a bit at a time to minimise losses in the unlikely event of losing a transaction.

brianposter

People seem to be confusing forex traders and currency transfer agents.


Forex traders offer the cheapest way of transferring money if they can do what you want them to do and if you know enough about foreign exchange to organise things yourself. You need to be careful about who you deal with.
Currency transfer agents are businesses set up to transfer currency and charge for the service. The most obvious have already been mentioned.