As June 23rd approaches what could a Brexit do to your finances?

Concerns about a Brexit continue to be in the news but apart from the initial reaction from the currency markets the exchange rates have levelled off and there is very little movement at the moment, but what effect could this have on British property buyers and British expats in France?

The pound fell considerably since David Cameron announced his reform deal for UK membership in February and by the end of the month, the GBP/EUR currency pair was stuttering at a 16-month low.

Market volatility is likely to gain pace and this can have a considerable impact on UK expats trying to sell.

Would 'Brexit' affect my French property purchase?

There are two key factors which could affect your ability to afford a home in France:

Interest rates and mortgage availability.

1. Interest rates

It is unlikely the Bank of England would want to increase interest rates if the UK was suffering adverse effects because of a Brexit.

Low borrowing costs make mortgages more affordable, which in turn may make it easier to sell your UK home in order to fund your move to France or further afield.

2. Mortgages

The banks are likely to be more cautious with their lending. Banks may tighten their lending requirements and reject more mortgage applications than previously, this would mean that you may struggle to get finance, even if, you have a strong credit rating. 

Talk to Tim Durkin at Stag Mortgages about your UK mortgage or re-mortgage plans.

Alternatively you were looking to secure a mortgage in France, you could find yourself subject to very strict lending requirements because the UK would be outside the EU so this means more paperwork and more hoops to jump through. When applying for borrowing in France your debts cannot total more than a "third of your income" which could become problematic if the Pound continues to weaken and you find your Pounds and pence are suddenly worth fewer euros than they were before.

Thinking of applying for a French mortgage then talk to Jonathan Woodcock at LCF Mortgages.

Could 'Brexit' affect how we send money to France?

Indeed a Brexit could change the regulations regarding overseas transfers. If Britain were to leave the EU, there wouldn’t necessarily be an agreement in place between UK and French banks and this would need to be re-written. This means that you would be charged by your destination bank, with no overall regulation regarding the amount that they can charge to receive euros.

Banks will always want to take your money rather than offer the service, only my opinion though! after a lifetime of poor service from most banks.

What affect could a Brexit have on sterling?

As stated at the start of this article the pound has already fallen in value considerably. As of early March, sterling had dropped by over 7% against the euro since the beginning of 2016 following 'Brexit' fears.

Lets put that into hard cash terms, £100,000 transferred at the beginning of January 2016 would have given you 136,460 Euros, but the same amount at the end of February 2016 would be 126,150 Euros. So over the course of 2 months your £100,000 would have dropped in value by €10,310.

Many of the European banks have already released their forecasts on the impact of a Brexit, these vary between a drop in the value of Sterling of between 14% to 20%.

Could £1.00 Equal 1.00 Euro with a Brexit?

Some Banks even predict parity with the euro in the short term, meaning £100,000 would only be worth 100,000 Euros making French property a lot more expensive for you.

Can I protect against Currency Fluctuations?

YES with a Forward Contract:

This service is available through most reputable currency exchange providers that enable you to 'fix a favourable change rate' for up to two years.

This is particularly useful for property buyers as it means you will always know exactly how much you’ll get for your money and can budget effectively and feel safe knowing you will be able to afford the house as there will be no change in your money from making the offer to having pay the balance.

Feel free to contact our currency partner Ben Amrany from FC Exchange follow this link 

Call us to discuss things like the amount of money you are looking to exchange and the time frames you have to work within. We can look into rates for you which can be used to calculate the exact sums of both currencies involved – you’ll know exactly what you’re getting.

If you want to go ahead, we will agree the exchange rate at which your money will be transferred in the future. You will send us a deposit (this is not an extra cost; it’s deducted from the balance you pay in the future). Then, when the transaction reaches the ‘settlement date’, you pay us the balance at the pre-agreed rate. All you need to do then is tell us where to send your money.

Forward contracts can be ideal if you don’t need to make a payment immediately but you can’t afford for the exchange rate to be moving wildly. If, for example, you’ve agreed to buy or sell a house overseas, but the completion date is a few weeks or months away, a Forward contract lets you guarantee the exchange rate, so you know exactly what the house will cost on completion day.

Do you want more information ?

So if you need to buy or sell sterling and would like to be kept up to date with all the latest data releases and exchange rate movements then feel free to contact myself Ben Amrany. If you are buying or selling a house in France we will make sure your monies are in the right place at the right time, we work hand in hand with you and Cle France.

For more information on the currency service I can provide please feel free to contact myself...

Ben Amrany from FC Exchange follow this link or phone and ask for myself and quote "Cle France" on 020 7989 0000.

You may contact me directly using this form (click here) with your requirement and I will explain the options that are available to you in getting the best exchange rate.

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.

Currency Update

Thursday 12th May at 09:15 - £1.00 GBP = 1.2644 EUR

A Busy Day

A busier day on the data front yesterday for the pound with manufacturing production, industrial production and GDP estimates all missing forecasts, although improved on previous readings. Following the industrial production numbers the figures highlighted that the UK industry has fallen back into recession for the third time in eight years, with the main contributors being the fall in steel and iron production.

GDP Estimates

The Office for National Statistics stated that production dropped over 37% in this sector compared to a year earlier. Manufacturing also contracted contributing to a slowdown in the overall UK economy.  Chris Williamson chief economist at 'Markit' stated, "The goods producing sector therefore looks to be on course to act as a drag on the economy again in the second quarter, contributing to a slowing in economic growth to near stagnation." The NIESR GDP estimates posted a figure of 0.3% down from the previous 0.4% reading. The NIESR argued that the slowdown in this growth has been down to concerns surrounding the referendum. Also stating that if the UK was to leave the EU then sterling would slide by a fifth with inflation spiking higher.

EU Referendum

Elsewhere in the news, George Osborne continued his campaign to keep the UK in the EU by stating that the Bank of England would face a big challenge if we were to leave with monetary policy proving difficult to manage and the UK having to deal with a number of impacts on the financial system.

The Day Ahead

For the day ahead, we have more from a data perspective, with the return of Super Thursday which includes the May monetary policy meeting along with May's inflation report, and finally a press conference from BoE Governor Mark Carney. May's inflation report will garner the most attention as the market will be watching for any updates on April's cautious tone, however, excluding any surprises we are more likely to see a flat Thursday as opposed to the former.

Do you want more information ?

So if you need to buy or sell sterling and would like to be kept up to date with all the latest data releases and exchange rate movements then feel free to contact myself Ben Amrany. If you are buying or selling a house in France we will make sure your monies are in the right place at the right time, we work hand in hand with you and Cle France.

For more information on the currency service I can provide please feel free to contact myself...

Ben Amrany from FC Exchange follow this link or phone and ask for myself and quote "Cle France" on 020 7989 0000.

You may contact me directly using this form (click here) with your requirement and I will explain the options that are available to you in getting the best exchange rate.

Blog submitted by: Ben Amrany for The French Property Network - Cle France.

For everything you need to know about French property visit www.clefrance.co.uk

End to ‘bill shock’ as EU mobile roaming charges are slashed

New rules that slash roaming charges for using mobile phones in other European countries have come into effect.

Controversial roaming charges holidaymakers pay to use their mobile phones in another European country will come down dramatically and are set to disappear altogether from 2017 following EU intervention.

For several years the European commission has been battling with the big mobile providers to force through cuts to the cost of making cross-border calls and using data in another country – the much hated roaming charges that leave many in “bill shock”.

Following lengthy negotiations, the EU announced in October last year that it will ban these charges from June 2017. Monthly call allowances will then apply across the EU as if the user were in their home country.

In the interim, the EU has put a cap on the amount operators can charge – which has just come into force. A roaming surcharge can now be no more than:

• €0.05 extra per minute for calls.

• €0.02 extra per SMS sent.

• €0.05 extra per MB of data.

Previous reductions have already seen the cost of roaming within the EU fall by 75% since they were first brought in, the European commission says.

Today’s changes mean EU roaming charges will fall by at least a third. Call costs will go down from around 16p a minute – typically what is added to cross-border calls – to a more palatable 4.4p. Data charges – the cost of accessing the web with a smartphone – will typically come down from 17.4p per MB to 4.3p. Such charges have often caught out unwary travellers, landing some with bills running into thousands of pounds.

However, it should be noted that contrary to what is said on the big phone company websites, roaming charges are levied on top of the cost of a UK call. So if you make a five-minute call from Madrid to Manchester, five minutes of your calls allowance is used, plus you pay the top-up rate of 4.4p a minute – a total 22p to the UK operator.

If you’ve used up your monthly calls allowance it starts to get very expensive. Most of the big operators – EE, Vodafone and O2 – typically charge 40p-45p a minute for calls made outside the allowance, so those roaming can be paying almost 50p a minute to call home.

Make a pay-as-you-go call and you’ll be charged around 30p-a-minute plus a 4p roaming top up.

The cost of receiving a call from the UK while you are abroad has also come down from around 4.4p to either 1p a minute or free, depending on the operator. EE charges 1p a minute while Vodafone, Tesco and O2 have scrapped them entirely.

Mobile phone users will now have to decide if it is worth their while paying extra for holiday roaming deals or bolt-ons. For example, EE offers unlimited calls and 100MB of data a day in Europe, but that costs £4. It remains a good deal if you make lots of calls – but if you are only making the odd call and not accessing data the extra expense is not worth it.

Other big firms offer similar deals – check out the best ones offered by your provider before you head to the airport. Data deals are particularly good value if you don’t have Wi-Fi where you are staying, and still want to update Facebook or search online.

If you roam a lot you may be better off switching provider. Three has led the way with its Feel at Home tariff which won’t charge anything extra to call or text the UK or for data use in 18 countries, including many in Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand.

Carphone Warehouse-owned iD network is also worth considering for frequent travellers looking to avoid roaming charges before 2017. Its TakeAway tariffs include free roaming in 29 countries including the whole of the EU, the US and Australia. Plans start at £12.50 a month for a sim-only 12-month contract.

Tesco Mobile announced this week that it is scrapping extra roaming charges for its customers travelling to any of 31 European countries between 23 May until midnight 3 September.

Note, most of the above prices only apply if you are visiting another EU country, which excludes a number of popular tourist destinations – for example, Turkey. Visitors there this summer will typically pay £1.20-£1.50 a minute to make calls, and a frightening £6 per MB of data downloaded. Tourists to other non-EU countries face similar charges. You have been warned.

What you will save

Let’s assume that Jane is heading to Paris for the weekend. She makes three five-minute phone calls to home in Manchester, sends five texts and uses her banking app, checks the weather forecast and gets around the city with a mapping app, adding up to a total 20MB of data.

Let’s also assume that Jane is on a Vodafone pay-monthly contract with a certain number of minutes and data, and that she hasn’t exceeded her monthly limits.

Last week in Paris she would have had to pay £2.47 for the calls, 25p for the texts and £3.48 for the data – a total of £6.20.

From this weekend she will pay 64.5p for the calls, 4.5p for the texts and 86p for the data – £1.55 in total.

So from Saturday she’ll be saving a total of £4.65. Happy holidays!

Part of the content of this blog was originally posted on the Guardian website.

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.

British expats lose legal battle for right to vote in EU referendum.

Court challenge brought by 94-year-old second world war veteran living in Italy and lawyer resident in Belgium fails

The high court has rejected an attempt to force the government to grant millions of UK citizens living abroad a vote in this June’ s EU referendum.

The legal challenge brought by two disenfranchised expats on behalf of those living overseas for more than 15 years was dismissed by Lord Justice Lloyd Jones and Mr Justice Blake.

REMEMBER - ExPats with less than 15 years away from UK can still vote.

94-year-old Harry Shindler and lawyer Jacquelyn MacLennan.

The government, the judges said, was entitled to adopt a cut-off period “at which extended residence abroad might indicate a weakening of ties with the United Kingdom”.

The ruling also noted that there would be “significant practical difficulties about adopting, especially for this referendum, a new electoral register which includes non-resident British citizens whose last residence in the UK was more than 15 years ago”.

The judges added: “Electoral registration officers currently retain records of previous electoral registers for a period of 15 years. They have no straightforward means of checking the previous residence status of British citizens who have been resident overseas for longer than 15 years.

“In our view, parliament could legitimately take the view that electors who satisfy the test of closeness of connection set by the 15 rule form an appropriate group to vote on the question whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union.”

The case was brought by 94-year-old Harry Shindler, a second world war veteran who lives in Italy, and the lawyer Jacquelyn MacLennan who lives in Belgium.

In court, lawyers for the two had argued that under the EU Referendum Act 2015 they were being unlawfully denied the right to vote in the referendum.

But Lloyd Jones, sitting with Blake, ruled section two did not restrict their rights and rejected their application for judicial review.

Richard Stein, the solicitor from Leigh Day who represented the claimants, said they would appeal.

“We now intend to take the legal battle to the supreme court, the highest court in the country, so that all British citizens living elsewhere in the EU can be part of the democratic process to vote in this referendum which will have a very real impact on their lives,” Stein said.

“We believe that there is precedent for fast-track legislation being put through parliament in a matter of days in response to court judgment, so there would be no need for the referendum to be delayed if the supreme court rules in our favour.

“Since this is a vote in a referendum rather than in an election there is no need to link the votes of Britons in Europe to any particular constituency in the UK. Possession of a British passport should be enough.”

Responding to the judgment, MacLennan said: “The government made a manifesto commitment to enfranchise all British citizens, no matter how long they have been abroad saying that they thought that ‘choosing 15 years, as opposed to 14 or 16 years, is inherently like sticking a dart in a dartboard’ and that ‘if British citizens maintain British citizenship that brings with it rights, obligations and a connection with this country, and that that should endure’. We just want the government to keep its promises.”

Part of the content of this blog was originally posted on the Guardian website.

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.

EU Referendum – will all British expats be included?

Judgement on British expats’ right to vote in EU Referendum is delayed for further consideration.

The Conservative’s 2015 manifesto, which was the backbone of their successful campaign and lead to the formation of the first Conservative majority government since 1992, included a pledge to scrap the rule that prevents British expats from voting in UK elections once they have lived overseas for 15 years.

However, no proposals have yet been made to change the legislation, so British expats who have lived overseas for more than 15 years who wish to vote in the June EU Referendum will not be able to do so.

At least that is the current situation. If 94-year-old Harry Shindler, a Second World War veteran living in Italy, and lawyer and Belgium resident Jacquelyn MacLennan are successful with their challenge, at least two million more British expats may be able to vote on 23 June.

Both claim that under the EU Referendum Act 2015 they are being denied the right to vote on the UK’s continued membership of the EU. Lawyers representing the expats took the case to the High Court in London on 20 April to seek a judicial review of the legislation.

If Successful

If successful says Richard Stein of Leigh Day, the lawyers for the claimants, “the judicial review should require the Government to rush through amending legislation to change the franchise for the forthcoming referendum in June 2016.”

During the court hearing on 20 April, the QC representing the government told the court that if the claimants won their case, it would be impossible to implement all the necessary steps needed to include them and still keep to the planned for date of 23 June. (QC is Queen’s Counsel – a senior barrister who has shown outstanding ability in complex cases and is awarded Queen’s Counsel status.)

In answer to questions as to why an expat who has lived overseas since for more than 30 years really cares whether the UK votes to stay in or out, the claimants’ QC told the court that his clients are, “not ex-pats but Britons in Europe” and that it was “not that they had left or given up on the UK, but every day of their daily lives they are relying on the fact of their British citizenship and membership of the UK in the EU”.

At the end of the High Court hearing, Lord Justice Jones and Mr Justice Blake told the government’s QCs that due to the complexity of the case they would need time for further consideration, but that they appreciated the “importance and urgency” of the matter.

Certainly, if a decision is not made soon there will not be time to set up the systems required to gather and record potentially two million more overseas votes.

Part of the content of this blog was originally posted on the Anglo Info website.

Blog submitted by: Alex at The French Property Network - Cle France.