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London to France

Removals from London to France, France

France is the shortest route we run and the one where people most often assume the hard part is the crossing. It is not. The crossing is a booked slot and a stretch of motorway; the difficulty is at the two ends, in a London stairwell and then in a French building with a courtyard entrance and a stone stair that was cut before removals existed.

On the shortest route the crossing is the smallest problem. The two doorways are the job.

Our half

What our crew does in London

A survey that establishes the crew size from the building rather than the inventory, then a packing visit by packers rather than the moving crew. Everything is wrapped for a long road run — vibration and stacking, not a twenty-minute drive across a borough — and anything rigid and fragile is crated in timber. The inventory is built item for item so that it matches what the paperwork will say, because a discrepancy at a border is a paperwork problem before it is a furniture problem.

Not our half

What is not ours on the route

The crossing. The tunnel or ferry slot is booked with an operator whose timetable we do not control, and a bad day at the terminal is a bad day for everybody in the queue. The customs entry is filed by an agent against declarations that are legally yours. Everything else on this route — packing, loading, the drive, the unload, the reassembly — is our own crew, which is the entire reason France is on this list.

Who moves on this route

  • Households moving to a job in Paris, Lyon, Toulouse or Nantes, where the flat at the far end is usually smaller than the London one and the access is usually worse.
  • Families going to the south-west — the Dordogne, the Lot, Charente — where the property is larger, the lane to it is narrower, and a full-size vehicle sometimes cannot reach the door.
  • People who already own something in France and are moving the contents of one London flat into it, which is a part-load rather than a whole household.
  • Returning French nationals with a London flat to empty, a set of documents already in order, and a strong preference for one crew rather than a chain of them.

Destination areas

Where the shipment is actually going

Paris and the inner suburbs Haussmannian buildings with a cour, a narrow stair and frequently no lift. The London half of the job is the easier half. A hoist or an external lift is sometimes the only way a wardrobe enters, and that is established at survey rather than discovered on the day.
Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse City-centre flats in old stock with modern parking restrictions. The constraint is usually where the vehicle can legally stand and for how long, which decides whether the crew carries or shuttles.
The south-west and Dordogne Larger properties reached by lanes a full-size vehicle cannot always take. Where that is the case we say so at survey and plan a transfer rather than sending a vehicle that will have to reverse two kilometres.
Provence and the Côte d’Azur Hill villages with stepped approaches and no vehicle access at all to some addresses. The carry distance is the number that matters here and it is measured, not estimated.
Brittany and Normandy The shortest run of all and the one most often booked as a part-load, because a single London flat rarely fills a vehicle going this short a distance.

Paperwork

Who holds which document

Since the UK left the EU a household move to France needs a customs entry even though nothing is being sold. The list below is what is normally asked for. It is not legal, tax or customs advice, and the requirements are the French authorities’ to set rather than ours to interpret.

Passport or identity document You For the person the goods belong to, matching the name on every other document in the file.
Proof of the French address You A lease, a deed or a utility connection. A holiday-let booking is not usually accepted as one.
Proof of transfer of residence You Normally a certificate from the mairie or a consular document. This is the one that decides whether the move is treated as a household relocation.
A detailed inventory Us Built at the packing visit, item for item, in a form the entry can be filed against.
The customs declaration An agent Filed against your documents and your declarations. The accuracy of both is legally yours.
Insurance documentation You Declared values for the load. We will explain what the cover on our own carriage does and does not include.

Arriving in France

The same crew that emptied the London flat carries the load into the French one. There is no handover, no destination agent, and nobody arriving who has never seen your furniture before. That is not a small thing: the commonest source of damage on an international move is the number of times a thing is picked up by somebody new.

What we ask for in advance is the access detail at the far end, and we ask for it specifically. Whether there is a lift and what its internal dimensions are. Whether the stair turns. Whether the vehicle can stand outside or whether there is a permit, a barrier or a pedestrian zone. Whether the door off the courtyard is the one the furniture has to come through.

Where something genuinely will not fit we say so before it is loaded rather than after it has been driven several hundred miles. That conversation is uncomfortable at survey and much worse on a French pavement.

London to France

Questions about moving to France

1Does the same crew really unload in France?
Yes. That is the reason the destination list is four countries rather than forty — all four are reachable by road, so the crew that loads is the crew that unloads. We do not appoint destination agents on these routes.
2Tunnel or ferry?
Whichever the operator has available for the load and the vehicle. Both are somebody else’s timetable rather than ours, and we would rather tell you that than promise a crossing we cannot control.
3Can you take a part-load to France?
Frequently, because a single London flat rarely fills a vehicle on a run this short. A shared load costs less and is handled more; we set out the trade-off rather than pushing one.
4Who files the customs entry?
A customs agent, against documents and declarations you supply. The accuracy of those is legally yours rather than ours. We will tell you what is normally asked for so that nothing is a surprise.
5What if the vehicle cannot reach the French address?
It is established at survey, not on the day. Where a lane or a pedestrian zone rules out a full-size vehicle we plan a transfer into something smaller and price the carry properly.
6Do you move vehicles or pianos to France?
Neither. Both are separate trades with their own equipment, and we would rather point you at somebody who does them than take a booking we should not have.

Tell us the stairs, not the boxes

Both addresses, what floor each one is on, where a vehicle can legally stand at either end, and the widest thing you own. That is what sets the crew — and the crew is what sets the price.

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