Leicestershire → France
Leicestershire to France
The shortest of our four European routes, and the one where most households underestimate the paperwork because the crossing itself feels so ordinary.
Who goes, from here
Three groups. Work postings — an employer with an office in Paris, Lyon or Toulouse, and a family following. Houses in the country, often bought years ago and furnished slowly, now being moved into properly. And people leaving the commute, who have worked out what a Midlands house sells for and what it buys in Occitanie.
The drive
M1 south to the M25, round the eastern side, and out through Kent to the crossing. On the French side the route is decided by destination: the A26 south-east for Reims and Burgundy, the A16 along the coast for Normandy, the A28 and A10 through Le Mans and Tours for the Loire and Bordeaux, and the long run beyond for Provence and the Riviera.
We state the route on the quote. It is the honest way to show why Normandy and the Var are not the same job.
The file
We write the inventory as the packing happens, prepare it in French, and raise the export and transit paperwork. You obtain the French address proof and the residency evidence, and you sign the inventory because it carries your valuation.
Start your side first. It has the longest lead time and it is the usual reason a date moves.
Moving, or furnishing?
- Transferring residence. France becomes your primary home; used household effects enter without duty, provided the file demonstrates it.
- Furnishing a property. You stay UK-resident; the goods are a conventional import assessed on declared value.
If you genuinely do not know yet, say so on the first call — it only has to be settled before the inventory is valued.
Delivering in France
Rural access is about the approach: a farmhouse at the end of a track, a gateway built before lorries, a courtyard with nowhere to turn. Send photographs and the answer is usually a shuttle rather than a problem.
Urban access is the opposite — a lift with room for two people and nothing else, and a staircase that decides what comes apart. Spain shares the first half of this drive before turning south at Bordeaux.
Worth knowing
Leicestershire to France, the practical questions
How does a load get from the Midlands to France?
M1 south, round the eastern side of the M25, then out through Kent on the M20 to the tunnel at Folkestone, or the M2 to Dover. On a full household the vehicle is usually loaded the day before it travels, so the crossing booking rather than your street sets the departure.
Does starting inland cost more?
It adds a first leg, and the quote says so rather than hiding it. What it does not add is uncertainty — the M1 and M25 are known quantities and we plan the departure around them.
Tunnel or ferry?
The tunnel for most household moves: quicker, less weather-dependent and a straightforward booking for a loaded vehicle. Dover to Calais is the alternative on the same road, and for Normandy or Brittany the western sailings occasionally win.
What does France ask for?
An itemised, valued inventory in French and signed by you; proof of the French address through a deed or a signed lease; and evidence you are transferring residence — a work contract, a residency application, or a certificate of change of residence from the consulate.
We are furnishing a house we already own. Is that different?
Entirely. Transfer-of-residence relief applies only where France becomes your primary residence. Furnishing a second home is a conventional import assessed on declared value, and it has to be declared as that.
Can you deliver to rural France?
Regularly, and the question is always the lane rather than the house. Where a full-size vehicle cannot turn, the last stretch is a shuttle with something smaller — planned in advance from photographs of the approach.
What about a Paris apartment?
A different job: courtyard access, a lift sized for people, a staircase with a turn, and sometimes a permit to stand outside at all. A hoist through a window is standard practice there and gets costed at survey.
Tell us the French address and which situation you are in.
Where it is going sets the route; whether France becomes home sets the whole customs file.