Accepting
Payments in Euros can prove Expensive
Like many owners of self catering holiday rental homes
in Europe, my property in the South of France will attract
visitors from inside and outside the euro zone.
I
learnt at any stage after the Euro was introduced that
the banks would not suffer financially as a result of losing
business on “exchanging currency”.
From
experience you can now go from one country to another in the
euro zone withdrawing “cash” from an ATM or using your credit/debit
card without penalty. This rule does not seem to apply with
the bank I bank with in France regarding cheques.
I
have had to add in my rental terms a statement advising the
renter that he/she will have to reimburse me for any bank charges
as a result of a non French euro cheque. This means my Belgian
and Dutch visitors have to be prepared to pay the bank commission.
In
late November 2005,I was sent a payment for €29.58 drawn on
a Spanish bank in euros. I posted off the cheque on the fits
of December. On the 22nd the bank credited my account with €29.58.
On the 23rd December they charged €13.80 administration charge
for transacting it! That is nearly 50% of its value!
To
be fair that might be their minimum standard charge and if that
is the case I am pleased the cheque was not for €10.00 as I
would have been paying them and not getting a cent.
The
above situation may not apply to all French banks – I hope not,
however if you are the owner of a self catering vacation home
do include in your terms and conditions that you make a charge
for changing the renters cheque from one currency or another
or even the same currency if it happens to be in euros.
If
the renter can arrange to have the cheque drawn on the currency
of the property owner (as I have done with US $ transferred
into £ sterling for example (at the renters cost) this might
solve this problem although I would not want to guarantee this
I
do not know if other banks in the Euro zone operate in the same
way, but it would be interesting to find out.
Philip
Suter is a Director of JML Property Services, a UK based company
offering Insurance Products on line, property rentals in Berkshire
and Buckinghamshire, England and a self catering vacation home
advertising service for the South of France - www.cotedazurrental.com
and internationally www.jmlvillas.com.
He is also involved with management training companies operating
in the UK and Internationally.
He
is a very experienced property consultant with over 30 years
work in the Residential letting business and served in the national
council of The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA).
He is a Fellow of the National Association of Estate Agents
(NAEA) and a Member of The association of Residential Letting
Agents.
©Philip
Suter jml Property Services January 2006
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Accepting Payments in Euros can prove Expensive
