Barclays Again...

Seamus,

Is it possible to change from a France Solutions mortgage with Barclays to a standard mortgage with the same bank without the EUR 50 quarterly charges.

Regan

Hi

We are purchasing a leaseback in Uzes. We are very happy with the area and the investment. However, we were annoyed to realise that with Barclays we have to pay 9 Euros per month in Bank charges just to have an account to receive income and pay the mortgage. They offer a credit card and life insurance. We require neither of these. Do we have any alternatives, as this represents a small tax on what is essentially quite a small mortgage?

Thanks

Huw

Hi Seamus

Thanks for your swift reply. When you say registered letter, do you mean by registered mail? Also, can I expect to pay some charges or should it be free banking? I have tried to have a conversation with the bank and the employee told me these were the lowest possible charges. Also, should I write to that contact at the bank or a general letter to the office?

Thanks again

Huw

Hi Seamus

Thanks for your tip. I wrote to Barclays and they have now relented and offered terms at 40 euros per year. I have been transferring money for the deposit via travelex, however on relatively small amounts required to send to fund the mortgage they are expensive. Could you tell me what is my best option in transferring money to my french account?

Thanks again

Huw

Hi, we have a French mortgage with Societe Generale. It's totally free to use internet banking, but believe they charge for a chequebook and debit card, which we haven't got. We've had this mortgage for about two years now and we have not had any charges. Charles Hamer in the UK arranged the mortgage for us and so far we've been happy with the service received from Societe Generale.

Ann & Paul Mudd

Seamus

It's quite some time now since we arranged this mortgage. I think we paid about 1% to the broker (certainly no more than this) and there would have been the usual mortgage arrangement fee which we can't remember what it was but it did not seem unreasonable at the time. The reason we went to a broker was because we didn't like the terms offered by Barclays and another UK bank (Abbey National I think). Their interest rates were considerably higher at the time. Since then there's obviously a lot more choice out there, but we settled for a cap and collar mortgage ranging between 0.6% and 5.6% and currently pay about 4.1%.

Whilst corresponding with you, an interesting point to note is that when we first transferred money into our French account from our UK RBS account we were asked if we wanted to pay the French bank's receiving charges at this end. We said yes and were presented with the charges by the RBS. The next time I transferred money, I said we would pay any charges at the Fench end - we haven't had any charges from the French bank doing it this way.

The Mudds

Hi again,

Following the last couple of posts. I wanted to check a couple of things to see if this was both normal and acceptable.

On setting up our investment we laid out the following fees:

Broker Mortgage arrangement fee: 500 Euros

Bank fees: 1% of the loan amount

Mortgage registration fee: 2.5% of the loan amount

Legal notary fees: 200 Euros

Notary fees: around 4% of total property cost

I am concerned that we have paid over the odds for the services in light of what has been posted. Could you re-assure me on this point?

Thanks again

Huw

Seamus

Thanks for that. Nice to have that reassurance as this is both an investment and apartment to enjoy. We paid around 113000 euros but laid down a 30% deposit. I guess this all seems okay!

Huw