If you have decided to drive around with the idea of buying a house in France, you may wish to brush up your knowledge about how to ask in French the various things that will invariably come up.
You will no doubt have questions to ask the estate agent (un agent immobilier).
You will also want to know something of the French banking, since you will eventually wish to open an account there.
Let us start with the visit to an estate agent.
We are looking for a house for roughly XYZ euros (Nous cherchons une maison pour environs XYZ euros. We have two children so we need three or four bedrooms. (nous avons deux enfants, alors une maison avec 3 ou 4 chambres a coucher).
We would like to see houses in this area (Nous voulons voir des maisons dans les alentours.
We would like to see houses not further than three kilometres from here (Nous voulons voir des maisons pas plus que trois kilometres d'ici)
The house is situated in lovely surroundings (La maison est situee dans un tres bon cadre).
It is important to have central heating (C'est important d'avoir le chauffage central).
We are going to look around (Nous allons faire un tour).
The house is in a beautiful location (La maison est dans un endroit magnifique ).
Is there a supermarket nearby? (Y at-il un supermarche pres d'ici? )
This is exactly what I was looking for (C'est exactement ce que je cherchais )
I really liked the first house more than the second one (J'ai encore plus aime la premiere maison que la deuxieme )
We have finally reached a decision (Nous avons finalement parvenus a une decision )
It is not far from the town centre (C'est pas loin de centre de ville )
The building was completely renovated (Le batiment a ete entierment renove )
A row of houses (La rangee de maisons ).
Note that in France, the land is measured in hectares. You will come across the word le demihectare and since an acre is 0.4 hectares, it is easy to work things out.Let us now turn to some of the words and expressions you will come across when opening a bank account in France.
It is important to remember, to never issue a cheque without having sufficient funds in the bank to meet it. If the cheque is not met,the matter will be reported, and the Banque de France can impose a ban called Interdit Bancaire. This means, that for 5 years, one is not allowed to issue cheques.
A savings account ( compte d'epargne ) and a long term savings account ( compte D'epargne logement ) are popular. Having a tax exempt savings account (codevi) may be the one you will want to have. Of course, the current account is the one you will want anyway, and this one is called compte courante.
Should you need an overdsraft, it is called decouvert. Other names to note, are the clearance of a cheque (encaissement ), the ATM machine ( distributeur or guishet automatique ), the balance ( solde ), the statement of account(releve de compte ),the permission to debit your account the provider is asking ( titre inter bancaire de payment ) or ( TIP ) for short.
A few more things like the interest rate ( taux ), the account holder ( titulaire ),the transfer of funds to some other account ( virement ), detailed particulars of your account and bank ( releve d'identite bancaire ) or (RIB) for short, direct debi(prelevement automatique), ,and the exhange rate ( le cours du change ) are also useful to know.
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