Banking in France

Ian has been trying to organise a small loan with a French bank to tide us over the poor exchange rate. We first applied in August with a personal visit to the bank where we met Emma, the English speaking financial advisor. Although Ian speaks fluent French we had to see Emma as we are English and she is employed to deal with the English clients (even though this required an additional trip to Bergerac). She was very positive and we started off the application. All was progressing smoothly (or so we thought) until the banking crisis, when we were told that the loan we had applied for was no longer available (even though Emma had told us it was okay). Anyway, it seems that Emma's promises are meaningless once the paperwork gets as far as head office.

Here is a sample of the emails that have been going back and forth!


Hi Ian

Head office need a quote from an electrician for wiring the house and a quote from the workman who will be putting in the windows… and hopefully then I will just have to push the print key and send the « demande de financement » direct to the address you gave me in France…

I will be in my office until about 3 o’clock your time and I will try to call you again tomorrow morning if we can’t get in touch before then.

Regards,

Emma Bertillon

Banque des Fermiers
Financial adviser/Conseiller particulier anglophone

De : ian@hotmail.com Envoyé : jeudi 16 octobre 2008 15:28À : Cp-en-ligne (CR824)Objet : RE: TR: RE: Home loan information: Quotes/Contracts

Hi Gemma

I tried to ring you, but you were away from your desk.I have no quote for the electricity since I envisaged my friend would be doing it with my help and then we would have it inspected by the Consuel.The windows will be installed by Batiman (I thought this was in the quote?)I hope this is sufficient.

Kind regards

Ian


Hello,

For the electricity I need an “attestation sur l’honneur” basically a letter saying that you are going to do the work, to make things easier here it is:

Je soussigné M Ian BARTON né le 09/07/1960 au Royaume Uni certifie que pour la future construction de ma résidence principale à SAINT EULALIE D’EYMET je ferais les travaux d’électricité moi-même.
Je m’engage à ensuite faire inspecter la maison par le consuel.

Sign and date the paper and then mail to me.

For the windows I need a quote for the main d’oeuvre from Batiman (the quote I have is just the material).


Regards,

Emma


Dear Emma
Please find attached the attestation

When I looked at the Batiman quote I can see for each item the line “Pose et fournitures diverses” which I think mean installation?

Kind regards

Ian


Hi,

Dossier back from head office, we need the following things:

The devis must all be less than six months old, the only one that is is for the menuiseries exterieurs.

The permis de construire is dated 2004 which means it is no longer valid, we need a new “recipissé de depot de permis”

We need to know where house plans came from, if they were done by you we need an attestation confirming that you did them

And while we are here, I am going to ask you for an original attestation for the electricity (same as the one you scanned and e-mailed me) just in case they decide they want one of them later (precaution)… Please send to me at 25-27 rue St Catherine, 24100 BERGERAC.

Regards,


Emma


Hi Emma

This is starting to get rather silly, it has been a month since the last round of questions. How much longer are they going to take? I said previously that it was important to have this moving since the builder will need paying shortly. If the process takes much longer I will not need a loan since I would have already paid him.I am not going to get quotes less than 6 month old since I already engaged the builder back in October 2007.The permis is valid because the work started in November 2007 prior to its expiry (declaration d'ouverture de travaux sent to the Mairie).The original house plans were signed off by the architect and formed part of the dossier for the permis de construire - I wouldn't have got the permis otherwise. I will send you the original of the declaration since your head office seems to be incredibly difficult at the moment.

Kind regards Ian

The tension is beginning to show!