As we’ve been so deep into our planning for a move to France for so many months, and have had so many long conversations with close friends and family about it, it felt like taking a step back and writing a simple summary would help us ensure it all made sense.
We’ll plan to retire in September 2026, and then do the move in stages. We will need to adjust to not working, living on a fixed income and deal with the logistics of moving country.
We’ll aim to have an extended holiday in France after we retire and look to find a place to rent/sign a rental agreement as part of that. This will allow us to start the visa application process with a move to France in January 2027.
We will put our house on the market in April 2027 with a view to completing in August 2027.
We realised some time ago that Dorset could never be our permanent home, so retaining our house long-term doesn’t make sense as we would not want to return to it should we choose to move back.
It would be possible to rent out the house to provide additional income, but that would tie up the capital for longer and give us a set of responsibilities and fuss that we don’t want.
We will sell the house after we have established ourselves in France but before we purchase a house there.
We will aim to move to the Alsace region, with a preference for Colmar (if possible). We will rent at first until we are sure of both the location and the country, and then look to purchase in about a year.
As ex-local government workers we have defined benefits pensions that would be taxed in the UK only. This gives us a solid income base that isn’t time-limited like other pensions can be.
We wil convert our two private pensions to annuities for further income. As mine is far smaller, I will take a six-year annuity to plug the income gap before my state pension kicks in.
We estimate we can still add to our savings in retirement after meeting our day-to-day expenses.
By the time we retire we will have built up a good capital base that will cover us post-work, and wil be able to add to this on a monthly basis.
We will leave the bulk of our savings in UK ISAs as these provide a far better return than we can get on French investments. We will only draw down from these whe we need to, as they cannot be replenished once we are French tax residents.
We wil invest the capital from our house sale to help offset rental costs until we are ready to purchase.
We will be realistic about the possibility that life in France may not suit us, so we will have a back-up plan should we choose to return to the UK.
As we would have sold the house, we would look to relocate to Norwich