Pinner to France
Removals from Pinner to France
The route most HA5 households take when they leave the country, and the one where the British end is most often the afterthought. A house being sold in Pinner does not stop having a chain because the buyer of your furniture is a French customs officer.
Two completions in two legal systems, and only one of them speaks to your solicitor.
Who takes this route from Pinner
- Families relocating for a posting in Paris, usually into an apartment considerably smaller than an interwar semi.
- Households buying rural property in Normandy or the Charente, where the house is large and the access is not.
- Retirements to the south-west, frequently combined with selling a Pinner house that has been lived in for decades.
The road out of HA5
Out of HA5 the vehicle picks up the A40 or the M1 for the M25, works round the eastern side to the M20, and crosses on the Eurotunnel shuttle from Folkestone. A loaded removals vehicle usually takes the shuttle rather than a ferry: the crossing is short, the vehicle stays sealed and the driver stays with it.
Calais is the fork. The A16 runs west along the coast for Normandy and Brittany; the A26 drops south-east for Reims and the Rhône; and the A28 through Rouen and Le Mans is the spine for the whole south-west.
Where we deliver
Customs, in the right order
France sits outside the UK customs union, so household goods are exported and imported even when every item in them is second-hand. Transfer of residence relief keeps the move free of duty for somebody genuinely changing where they live, and it stands or falls on the inventory.
Who obtains what
| Document | Obtained by | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Detailed inventory (valued) | Us | Written at the Pinner property during the survey and checked again at loading. This is the document customs reads. |
| Proof the UK address has ended | You | The completion statement, a closing council tax bill, or an ending tenancy agreement. |
| Proof of the French address | You | Deeds, a signed lease, or an attestation from the mairie once you are registered. |
| Passport and residence status | You | Copies for the file. Your status is what decides whether the relief applies at all. |
| Export declaration | Us | Raised on the UK side against the inventory before the vehicle reaches the terminal. |
| Import entry and relief claim | Us | Lodged with French customs through our agent, against that same inventory. |
Rows marked You are the ones that hold a load up when they are started late, so begin those the week the move becomes real. Rows marked Us are built here from the inventory taken at your Pinner property.
The house you are leaving still has a chain
This is the part international removals pages skip. Your Pinner house is being sold, and a sale in England completes when four other households and their lenders agree that it does. The fact that your furniture is going to France changes nothing about that.
So the leaving end is planned exactly as it would be for a move to Eastcote: we establish the chain length, we assume keys will be released later than anyone hopes, and we load early. What the French leg adds is that a vehicle waiting for a completion is also a vehicle with a booked crossing, which is an argument for collecting a day or two ahead and holding.
The second point is the walk-through. Everything that gets forgotten on a domestic move — the loft, the garage, the fitted things in the sale contract — gets forgotten identically here, except that the consequence is a four-hundred-mile round trip rather than a drive back across HA5.
Pinner to France
Questions on this route
01 Should we collect before completion?
On this route, frequently yes. Collecting and holding uncouples the crossing booking from the completion hour, and it means the vehicle is not sitting in Folkestone waiting on a solicitor in Harrow.
02 Can you do a part-load?
Yes, and for a second home it is usually the right shape. A part-load shares a vehicle with other consignments going the same way — less to pay, departing when the route fills rather than on your chosen date.
03 Will our furniture fit a French house?
Measure the stairs, the door heads and any courtyard archway at the viewing and send us the numbers. A Pinner semi and a Norman farmhouse are furnished on entirely different assumptions.
04 Do we pay duty on our own furniture?
Not where you qualify for transfer of residence relief and the file is correct. It is conditional on your residence status and on an inventory that describes the actual contents.
05 What about the things we cannot take?
Fuel, gas, open paint and garden chemicals are refused here exactly as they are on a domestic move, and plant material is restricted on top of that. Deal with the shed before the day.
06 Can you hold goods in the UK first?
Yes, and on an international move it is often the neater sequence. Goods are collected, listed and held, and the export file is built from that list.
Moving from Pinner to France?
The two addresses, what is happening to the Pinner house, and roughly what is going. We will come back with the route, the documents and a written quote.