Country page · France

Removals from Putney to France

Paris · Provence · Côte d'Azur

Our removals from Putney to France tend to follow a few familiar patterns. 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.

Planning removals from Putney to France

France is the shortest of our four routes from SW15. The lorry leaves Putney, crosses the Channel at Folkestone or Dover and drives on to the new address. Nothing is handed to another firm along the way. Because the drive is shorter, French moves are often the ones where people keep changing their minds about what to take. The survey is where that gets settled, room by room, and written down.

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.

Every route starts the same way: a free survey at your SW15 home, then a written plan for both ends. The Putney side — parking suspensions, stairs, loading bays — is covered on our Putney removals page. The other routes are compared on our international removals from Putney page.

Buses and traffic on Putney High Street outside Putney station, a busy stretch for a removal lorry — Putney High Street by the station, where a removal lorry cannot simply stop. Photo: Bill Boaden (geograph.org.uk 2550216), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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 you have owned and used for the qualifying period cross duty-free when you are setting up home in France. 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 that meets the same ownership test can travel under ToR with the household goods. Re-registration on French plates is a separate post-move task with the local Préfecture.

Route from SW15 to France — schematic.

Illustrative examples

How a Putney to France move might run.

These are illustrative scenarios we have written to show how such moves are planned. They are not reviews or quotes from named customers.

Example move

A two-career couple posted to Paris

Both jobs are moving and the start date is fixed by the employer. The survey separates what goes to Paris from what goes into storage or to family. If the Paris completion slips, the load waits in our depot under the same written quote. The crew who load in Putney are the crew who carry it up the Paris stairs.

Example: couple in a second-floor flat, no children

Putney, SW15 → Paris, 7e arrondissement

Example move

A village house in the Vaucluse

The French house purchase has a history of slipping, so the plan includes depot storage from the start. The village square is the closest the lorry can get, so the last stretch is booked on a shuttle van. Nobody has to improvise on the day.

Example: young family, one partner going freelance

Putney, SW15 → Vaucluse, Provence

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. For Putney to Provence moves, school timing is the constraint we see most. We ask about the school start at survey and plan the collection backwards from it, so the family arrives with time to settle before term. If the French purchase runs late, the load waits in our depot, and the quote already says how storage works.

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 routes from SW15

More removals from Putney

Country page · Italy

Ready to talk it through?

A first conversation tells us whether we are the right firm for your move. Either way you get an honest answer.

Request a quote Or just say hello