Foreign Perspectives

My parents were asking for a passbook account for their grandchildren as they aren’t keen on card based accounts.

Almost all accounts these days are card or internet based and the initial couple that I came across weren’t great as the building societies concerned didn’t have that many branches. Finally, I settled on the National Savings Investment Account which only requires a £20 deposit to open and also pays interest gross at quite a reasonable rate.

Opening it is a little peculiar as the Post Office branch doesn’t ask for any proof of ID or address and instead National Savings do the whole lot electronically. That worried me a little as I wasn’t sure that we’d turn up on their records but the books have arrived so we must do. Even stranger though is that they didn’t ask for any proof of ID from the children (normally you’re asked for a birth certificate) and one of ours was born in France so I can’t seem him appearing on any UK records.

Anyway, my parents are happy that they’ve a book for the grandchildren.

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If you’re used to the wide variation of mortgage offers in the UK, the French marketplace is child’s play: as far as we can tell, all mortgages are either fixed or variable rate and they are all the repayment type.

If you are buying your house “subject to mortgage”, you will need to see the bank before you see the notary as you will need to say “subject to obtaining a mortgage from X bank at Y% over Z years”. If this isn’t added to the “compris” then you will lose your deposit if you can’t get a mortgage.

French investments are incredibly simple too. The only problem with them is that you need to buy them through an advisor which is even more of a pain than trying to do something banking-related through your bank advisor. Due to this and the very limited range available, it’s best to continue to do your investing through the companies that you are already using.

This is part of our series on buying a house in France; next week we start venturing into French administration.

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It was bound to happen sooner or later of course. French drivers driving tractors on a road where 100km/hour is sometimes far too slow for the people behind.

Anyway, we were tootling along this morning at quite a low speed as we’d just left the village, slowed down even more as there was oncoming traffic, moved out to overtake the tractor in front and, of course, he decided that was the time to turn (naturally without indicating that he was planning on doing it).

So we are sans voiture at the moment and likely to be so for a while I suspect if insurance claims move along at the usual pace of French administration.

Fortunately the insurance covers us for a replacement car so we’re picking up a rental car tomorrow afternoon.

Given the level of damage (both sides nicely smashed in, roof caved in, windscreen and side window broken, some wheels punctured and broken, plus it looks like the axle ain’t straight either), I think we’re talking write-off but we’ll know better after the assessor sees the car (possibly later today).

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