Mortgages in France. Can anyone recommend a bank or a broker?

[FlingonTheValiant]

We've had our offer accepted, so we're trying to find the best place to get a mortgage. Our account is with the CIC, and our banker has been very helpful, but she suggested that we get some quotes from other banks to negotiate with.

We have a friend who works at LCL, and they seem to do really good deals, but CIC said they can't match them as they're such a big bank. Can anyone suggest anywhere else we could look please?

Also, I've found that there are lots of English mortgage brokers working in France, has anyone used one? Alternatively, does anyone know where we can find a French mortgage broker? Neither I, nor DH, nor anyone in his family could remember what they're called in French, so we can't google them

Thanks very much!

Oh, one more thing, sorry! Can anyone recommend anything that we ought to negotiate to have as part of the mortgage? For example, is it worth having interest free early repayment? Even if it means having a slightly higher repayment rate?

Thanks again!

I haven't taken out a mortgage in France but am in the process of doing it in Luxembourg.

I don't see why you can't try LCL and then switch banks if they will give you a better deal? The way I see it, a mortgage is the biggest financial thing I expect to do in my life, so I would have no qualms about going where I will get the best deal.

The word for a broker is normally 'courtier' (certainly for insurance, anyway) so I would try googling courtier hypotheque, courtier pret immobilier etc.

Not sure what interest free early repayment is - do you mean not having to pay penalties if you repay earlier? We are dealing with this by having half the mortgage on a floating ('variable') rate for 25 years and the other half fixed for 20 years (actually fixed for 10 but total period of 20), as there are no penalties on the floating bit if you repay earlier.

Good luck - it's a stressful process!!

We used BNP Paribas - they have an international team. Recommended as the deal was good - we were sent a folder with a list of every mortgage payment for the next 25 years so no surprises! - and we can use two 'jokers' (month mortgage holidays) and can transfer the mortgage to another property if we want to move.

Thanks for the Weta, I mentioned it to PIL this morning, who chorused "oh, a courtier, why didn't you say so?"

And yes, I meant penalty-free early repayment, I couldn't work out how to describe it. Is it normally still a reasonable rate if you have it variable? We're a bit scared of doing that, as the CIC offered us fixed rate for the duration at under 4%, which seems very good to us .

Thanks googie, we'll look at BNP. We don't need an international one, but I think they're normal rates are meant to be very good anyway.

Thats a good point re property transfer, I'll check up on that as we were told it wasn't possible, but the rates are good at the moment so we'd like to preserve it if we move.

So did either of you use a broker, or did you go straight to the banks? We're not sure which will be easier?

Thanks very much!

We just went straight to the banks, but there aren't very many in Luxembourg :)

Under 4 percent is a really good rate for fixed. What's the variable rate? It's just that if you have some amount on variable you have a bit of freedom if you find you are able to repay more quickly. What are the penalties for early repayment?

Here we were told we could transfer to another property, so I would definitely keep asking about that one - it seems very surprising if you are locked into something even if you sell the house. I know here they said it is fine to transfer to another property in Luxembourg but problematic if we move elsewhere (ie for us since we would have penalties!). Here they said the penalties depend on the banking conditions at the time as basically we would have to repay the bank's losses, and it could be up to 10 percent of the remaining sum although probably closer to 5 percent. Here there are no penalties on repaying the variable bit ahead of time. Do get more info!!

Great, thanks for the advice.

I seem to remember that the penalty was about 3%, which seems good compared to your 5-10, so maybe it's not so bad.

It might be a good idea to put a bit of it on a variable then, the variables aren't too bad at the moment, though I can't remember off the top of my head.

they told us that if we moved we would have to pay off the existing mortgage, and take out a new one. It seems ludicrous to me, so we'll definitely look into that more closely if that's not normal.

Thanks again!

We plan to use BNP Paribas (have a PEL with them) or LCL when we decide to buy.

We have a PEL and a CEL with the CIC, but annoyingly haven't had them long enough for them to be any use :(

BNP and LCL looking good then.

IIRC they aren't allowed to charge more than 3% penalty.

One of the biggest French brokers is meilleurtaux.com. They used to be online only but now have branches in some cities. I have had several recommendations for their service although they all date back a couple of years now.

Thank you Otherside, we'll have a look at them.

We went with BNP Paribas. We also at the same time negociated with Credit du Nord and played them off against each other to get them to reduce the rate.

Then, 18 months later the rates went down. So we went to a new bank (can't remember who) and got a firm offer of a better deal. We then showed that offer to BNP Paribas and got them to reduce our rate even further. They didn't match the other offer, but it didn't matter because if we'd changed banks we'd have lost out in the penalty fees.

Fixed rates are much more usual in France than variable rates. We started on a fixed rate and are now on a variable rate but it's capped lower than our previous fixed rate so we're still winning

It seems to be usual here to pay off your whole mortgage when you sell your flat/house and take out a new one for the next purchase.