The payments involved in buying a second home doesn’t end with the notary fees. Just like any other house in any other country, you’ll have to think about bills. Common payments include insurance premiums, local taxes and utilities, as well as any fees given to local tradesmen.

What happens when they arrive and you’re not there? What if they get there after your vacation’s over and you’re back in your “regular” home? What can you do to avoid the fines that are slapped for late payments? (Most won’t take the excuse “but I was in another country!”

One of the things you can do is to set up your own bank account. This is an excellent first step. Almost any French bank will provide really good service but some foreigners prefer working with those that are known for having a very good English speaking staff. This includes Britline, run by Credit Agricole. This, and some other banks that specialize in servicing foreigners, don’t require you to have a French address. (Useful when you’re still finalizing the details of your home purchase). However you will need to show documents like birth and marriage certificates, passports, bank account statements from your banks at home. With hardly any fuss or bother you can set up a French Bank account.

You can also open a deposit account to keep any extra money in. For your convenience you can make transactions from your home country. It also helps to get a debit card.

Do keep track of the withdrawals and the checks you issue because you will incur very heavy penalties in France if the account is overdrawn. You can handle this in many ways. One is to create an arrangement for money to be regularly transferred from another account, though this will incur some kind of transaction fee (sometimes up to £30 per transaction). You can also go through a specialist foreign exchange broker which gives you the advantage of a more favourable rate.