We've had a checking account with Credit Lyonnaise since 2005. We've paid all of our French bills through the account either by check or debit - mortgage (through a different bank), taxes, utilities, property management, the works. We have a Carte Bleu (French credit card - Visa - tied to our bank account). We have a 'personal banker' with whom I can exchange emails (thanks to Google Translate). We recently opened a savings account in which we've parked the equity from the sale of our house.
I recently contacted our personal banker to ask how to pre-approve a mortgage. That's how we purchased the house in Cazouls. We'd contacted Banque Patrimoine & Immobilier on the advice of an expat on one of the expat forums. We faxed and FedExed a bunch of financial information. Eventually, we were pre-approved for a mortgage of up to 100,000 euros. It made things simple when we found the house. Put the money down, inform the bank, and away we went.
Credit Lyonnaise does not work that way, I'm told. When we've found the property, we'll let the bank know. They'll decide then and only then. No pre-approval. Not terribly convenient. Oh, well. If these things were easy, we'd all be rich.
EDIT: Credit Lyonnaise crapped out. We found the house that we were looking for in Quarante, called with the particulars, and they simply disappeared. The mortgage company that the real estate agent suggested wasn't interested. We weren't looking to borrow enough to make it worth their while to write the note. In the end, we went back to BPI. Even though we had a history, our age was a problem. We had to fill out endless form, have blood work and an EKG sent to them, and had to have our doctor fill out a four-page form that ended with the question: Will the mortgage holder live long enough to pay off the mortgage? And we had to buy mortgage insurance anyway. But they got it done and the rate of 2.68% fixed for 15 years works very well for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment