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France

Paris · Provence · Côte d'Azur

Putney moves to France tend to fall into rhythms we know well. The Paris banking professional taking the next role; the pre-children couple relocating to Provence before school commitments lock them in; the established SW London family making the second-home-on-the-Riviera the primary address.

These are the three patterns. The fourth — rural Dordogne smallholding moves — is genuinely common across the network but it is not Putney's typical customer. If your move is to the Dordogne or rural Brittany, our sister site at Removals Somerset is the better-fit specialist; the inland-rural framing is theirs.

What we cover here is the cosmopolitan-France move from a SW-London-professional-family starting point: the Haussmann apartment in the 7th or 16th, the village in the Vaucluse with the right primary school nearby, the hillside property above Cap d'Antibes that the family has been visiting for years. The customs paperwork sits the same way; the inventory rhythm differs.

The Putney → France pattern

Three moves we run, three stories that fit.

Each pattern is a real shape we have moved households along — survey-tested timing, destination-tested access.

Banking and tech professionals to Paris

Career moves to Paris — La Défense banking, the tech-finance corridor around Île-de-France — are common. The professional move typically runs faster than the family-lifestyle move because the corporate side has already paid for the destination property due diligence. Our work sits in the household side: the Putney flat consolidation, the consignment, the customs filings, the Paris destination delivery (including the practical reality that Paris destination addresses are often fifth-floor walk-ups without service lifts, surveyed for at our end).

Pre-children family lifestyle moves to Provence

Putney couples in their thirties making the move while the family is still in formation — before primary school choices lock the geography in. Provence is the common pattern: the Vaucluse or Alpilles village with French-state-school catchment within walking range, the renovated farmhouse with garden, the partial-remote work that the move makes possible. We have done enough of these that the rhythm — survey, written quote, school-term timing, destination delivery into a village with narrow access requiring shuttle vehicles — is conversation rather than improvisation.

Second-home becoming primary on the Côte d'Azur

Established SW-London families who have owned a property near Antibes, Cap Ferrat, or above Nice for years, making the consolidation into the south-of-France residence the primary address. The move is typically a partial-consolidation rather than a full clear-out (the SW London property often becomes the secondary). We coordinate the partial move plan, the customs filings on the southbound consignment, and the Côte d'Azur destination delivery — the latter sometimes via shuttle vehicle given that hillside property access is often single-track.

Regions covered

Destinations within France we move to from SW London.

Paris and Île-de-France — 7e, 8e, 16e, Neuilly, Boulogne-Billancourt
La Défense corporate corridor
Provence — Vaucluse, Alpilles, Luberon, Aix-en-Provence
Côte d'Azur — Nice, Antibes, Cap Ferrat, Beaulieu-sur-Mer
Lyon and the Rhône corridor (banking and tech)
Bordeaux and the Aquitaine wine country (lifestyle moves)

What you will need

For the customs side and the residency-evidence pack.

Long-stay visa, residence card, or evidence of EU-national status for the family member registering residence
Proof of French accommodation at the destination (purchase contract or rental agreement)
Recent UK address proof (council tax, utility bill)
Detailed household inventory — we prepare this at survey
Passport copies for the moving party

Mid-career life stages we work with

Who moves to France from Putney.

Pre-school family lifestyle

Couples in their thirties — partnered, often with a baby or pre-school-age child — making the lifestyle move before the family geography settles into a school catchment. Provence, the Italian lakes, Cascais, Mallorca-interior. Considered timing, often hand-in-hand with one partner moving to partial-remote work.

Banking, finance and tech corporate relocation

The career-driven mid-life move. Paris, Milan, Madrid, Lisbon for the role; central-city destination property typically with the corporate side handling the housing and visa; our side runs the household.

Pre-retirement, still working

Late-career professional household making the move while one or both partners are still working — partially or fully remote, often with the destination property bought over years of holidaying and now becoming the primary address. Florence, Rome, the Italian lakes, the Côte d'Azur, the Portuguese coast, central Madrid.

Customs and paperwork

How the France customs side works.

Transfer-of-Residence (ToR) relief: household goods cross duty-free if owned for six months and you are establishing residence at the destination. We file the UK-side ToR1 with HMRC and the French Douanes declaration on your behalf.
Post-Brexit residency-evidence pack: long-stay visa or residence card (for non-EU national family members), proof of accommodation at the French address, evidence of UK departure (closing utility bills, council tax letter, employment-end letter where relevant).
For Paris destination addresses the inventory is filed digitally; for rural Provence destinations the Douanes regional office may request the inventory in physical form alongside.
Vehicle import: a UK-registered car owned for six months or more qualifies for ToR alongside the household goods. Re-registration on French plates is a separate post-move task with the local Préfecture.

Route from SW15 to France — schematic.

France testimonials

From Putney households who made the move.

Career move for both of us with timing that did not allow much margin. The survey conversation cut through what we needed to think about versus what we did not — and the written quote held through the property completion delay our Paris side ran into. The crew that loaded at Putney was the crew that unloaded at the 7e. That is the practical thing that mattered.

The Hartfield-Mowbray household

Banking professional, partner in tech, no children yet

Putney, SW15 → Paris, 7e arrondissement

We were the Putney → Provence pre-children pattern, exactly. Survey understood that. The move targeted late June before the maternelle term in September. They held depot storage for two weeks when our Vaucluse village house completion slipped. Destination delivery into the village required the shuttle vehicle the survey had already flagged. No improvisation, which is what we wanted.

The Lyttleton-Faraday family

Tech professional, design partner, pre-school child

Putney → Provence — Vaucluse

Frequent France-specific questions

The things people ask before a France move.

We are moving to Paris for a banking role. How does this typically run?

Survey at your Putney address — usually evening or weekend to fit the working week. Written quote follows by email. Once booked: load-out at your convenience, consignment crosses the Channel via Eurotunnel or Dover-Calais, French customs clearance with the ToR paperwork we file on your behalf, destination delivery to your Paris address (we survey the access at this end and the Paris destination side at quote stage). The corporate side usually handles the property and visa; we handle the household.

Our Provence move is timed around the school year — can you work to that?

Yes, and it is the most common timing constraint for Putney → Provence moves. The survey conversation includes the school-term anchor: in most cases the move targets late June or early July so the new term in September is settled. We work the depot storage window around any property-completion slippage — Provence purchases sometimes overrun by weeks rather than days.

What about packing valuable artwork or instruments?

Itemised separately at survey, packed by us in protective crating, declared at higher cover than the standard transit insurance. The piece travels with the same crew door to door — no third-party hand-off mid-route — which is the practical assurance that matters for art and instruments.

Our second home on the Côte d'Azur is becoming the primary. Different process?

Same customs process — ToR relief still applies once you establish residence at the French address. The practical difference is the move is often a partial-consolidation: some of the SW London household stays (because the London property is now the secondary), some of the existing Côte d'Azur house is reshuffled to accommodate the consolidation. We plan the partial move at survey.

Other corridors we run

The other destinations on the network.

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