Kent to France
Removals from Kent to France
The one route this county genuinely owns, and the one where people most underestimate the far end. The water is the short part. What follows is often a single-track hameau lane that would be entirely familiar to anybody who lives off a Kent byway.
Rural France and rural Kent have the same problem in two languages: a gateway built before lorries.
Who moves this way from Kent
- Households leaving Kent for rural Normandy, Brittany or the south-west, usually to a property at the end of a track.
- Second-home owners furnishing a French place from a Kent one, in part-loads rather than all at once.
- People who have retired to a village and discovered the van cannot reach the door.
The road out
From anywhere in Kent it is the M20 to Folkestone for the shuttle, or the A20 to Dover for a ferry. The choice is made on sailings, on what the port is doing that week and on whether the load benefits from the driver staying with the vehicle. Neither adds meaningfully to the planning; both are routine from this county.
Out of Calais the autoroute network takes you almost anywhere in France quickly and on good surfaces. The A16 runs west into Normandy, the A26 south towards Reims and Burgundy, the A1 to Paris and the A10 onwards to Bordeaux and the south-west. The motorway part is easy. It is the twenty minutes after leaving it that this page is about.
Where we deliver
Customs, and who obtains what
France applies the standard transfer-of-residence relief on used household goods you have owned and used, brought in within the period allowed after you establish residence. The file is prepared here from the inventory before the vehicle leaves. What we cannot obtain is the half attached to you as a person, so it is worth starting that early.
The file, split in two
| Document | Obtained by | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Valued inventory | Us | Built at the survey and finalised as the vehicle loads. Contents described, not just cartons counted. |
| Certificat de non-cession | You | An undertaking not to sell the relieved goods on within the period the relief requires. |
| Proof of the French address | You | A deed, a lease or a utility account in your name at the new address. |
| Proof of leaving the UK address | You | Council tax closing account, a tenancy end, or the completion statement on the sale. |
| Passport and residence route | You | Whichever visa or residence route applies to you. We do not advise on immigration. |
| Export and import entries | Us | Lodged by us or our agent against the inventory before the vehicle reaches the terminal. |
Rows marked You are attached to you as a person and take real time to obtain, so start them before you have a moving date. Rows marked Us are built here from the inventory taken at the survey.
What the last road is usually made of
In rural France it is very often a gravelled or unmade lane serving three or four houses, with a name, a signpost and no maintenance authority — the direct equivalent of a Kent byway. It carries agricultural traffic comfortably and a loaded removals vehicle much less comfortably, and the difference is the weight distribution rather than the width.
Village cores are the second pattern. A stone arch into a courtyard, or a street that narrows between two houses to something a car fits through and nothing else does. Those numbers exist and nobody has them, so the single most useful thing you can send us is a photograph taken from the wide end looking through.
And the third is a hill. Hilltop villages in the south-west and in Provence are reached by a road that climbs in switchbacks with no turning place, and the sensible answer is frequently to park at the bottom and shuttle up in something smaller. We would rather plan that here than discover it at a bend.
Kent to France
Questions on this route
01 Which crossing do you use?
Whichever suits the load and the sailings. Both leave from this county and neither is difficult to arrange; it is a booking decision rather than a planning one.
02 What should we measure at the French end?
The narrowest point on the last road, the gateway or arch, and the nearest place a vehicle could turn round. Photographs of all three are better than measurements of any of them.
03 Our house is in a hameau down a track.
Then we survey the track before we choose the vehicle, exactly as we would for a Kent farm. If the answer is a shuttle from the road, we plan it rather than improvise it.
04 Can you handle the customs paperwork?
The half that comes from the inventory, yes, prepared before departure. The half attached to you — residence, proof of address, the non-cession undertaking — has to come from you.
05 Will our appliances work?
France runs the continental plug and voltage standard. Small items with adaptors are fine; whether large white goods repay the space is a judgement we will give you honestly at survey.
06 Can you deliver in stages?
Yes, and on second homes it is common. Goods can be held here between loads so the French end is furnished as the building work allows rather than all in one day.
Moving from Kent to France?
Both addresses, roughly what is going, and anything you know about the approach at the far end — the gateway, the street width, the archway, the gradient. Photographs are better than descriptions.