Road removals from Sussex to the Mediterranean plain and the Pyrenean foothills, typically 6–8 days door to door. Village houses, city flats and mountain roads surveyed before we quote.
Removals to Languedoc and the Pyrenees from the UK are increasingly asked for by a younger set of movers: families and remote workers who found Provence out of reach and discovered that Carcassonne, Béziers, Montpellier, Perpignan, Toulouse and Pau offer the south of France at a friendlier price. The region runs from the Mediterranean plain to high mountain valleys, so the deliveries are varied — a tall village house in the Aude, a flat in Montpellier, a converted barn with views of the peaks above Pau — and each asks something different of the crew.
Carcassonne, with its walled Cité above the modern town, and Béziers, on the Canal du Midi, sit among vineyards and villages where stone houses are still good value. Montpellier is a lively university city with a tram network and a young population, and Perpignan, the capital of French Catalonia, is close enough to the Spanish border that some customers split their search between the two countries — our removals to Spain service covers the other side.
Further west, Toulouse, the pink-brick city of the aerospace industry, draws people moving for work, while Pau looks straight at the Pyrenees from its boulevard and suits anyone who wants the mountains on the doorstep. Between them are foothill villages, valleys and ski-area chalets. We cover the whole region on one road service, from the Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic end of the range.
What brings people is a mix of sun, wine country, the Canal du Midi, the beaches of the Mediterranean and the mountains within reach, at prices that still make sense to a family rather than only to retirees. Many buyers here are renovating: a village house with a roof terrace, a winemaker’s house with a cellar, a Pyrenean barn awaiting its conversion. That often means the furniture arrives before the house is finished, so we plan the delivery for the rooms that are ready and keep the rest back.
Toulouse and Montpellier moves look more like city relocations: an apartment in a residence with a car park barrier, a lift and a building manager, and often an employer waiting on a start date. Tell us the building’s rules early and we will fit the delivery to them, including the time slot for using the lift and where the vehicle can wait while the crew unloads.
The typical Languedoc village house is tall and narrow: three or four storeys on a small footprint, a steep internal staircase, and a front door that opens straight onto a lane barely wider than a car. The lorry can rarely stop outside, so we plan a short carry or a smaller vehicle, and we look hard at which large pieces can realistically climb that stair. City flats in Montpellier and Toulouse raise the usual questions about lifts, parking and building rules, and central Montpellier has large pedestrian areas where a lorry cannot stop at all.
The Pyrenees add gradient and weather. Mountain roads climb in hairpins, some bridges and village streets are too tight for a large vehicle, and from November to March snow can close higher roads and French rules require winter equipment in mountain areas. We plan mountain deliveries for the season and route them to the right-sized vehicle. On the plain it is the opposite problem: summer heat and the dry tramontane wind, which is why we deliver early in the day and wrap furniture well.
Because more of the movers here are of working age, the paperwork often starts with the job rather than the house. Whether you are joining an employer in Toulouse or working remotely from a village near Carcassonne, the visa you hold decides when you can take up residence, and that in turn decides when the transfer-of-residence relief applies to your furniture. Once you are genuinely moving your main home and have owned the goods for at least six months, we prepare and file the ToR1 paperwork and our French destination agent handles the customs entry at the French end.
Residence permits are issued through the préfecture — Carcassonne for the Aude, Montpellier for the Hérault, Perpignan for the Pyrénées-Orientales, Toulouse for the Haute-Garonne and Pau for the Pyrénées-Atlantiques. If you are selling in Sussex before a job starts, we can hold your goods until the move date is fixed.
Remote workers should think about the desk as much as the paperwork. Monitors, computers and printers travel well if they are packed in their original boxes or in double-wall cartons, and anything with a mains plug will need an adapter or a French lead. Items with lithium batteries, such as e-bikes, should be raised at survey so they are packed and declared properly.
Allow a typical 6–8 days door to door. After clearance at Sevington and the Channel crossing, the drive runs south through the middle of France, either down the A20 past Limoges towards Toulouse or across the Massif Central on the A75 over the Millau viaduct towards Béziers and Montpellier, depending on the destination. Drivers’ hours rules make it a multi-day run.
Sole-use loads go direct and sit at the quick end of the window; a shared part-load takes longer while it fills. A mountain delivery in winter may need a weather day built in. If your dates move, the load waits in storage before shipping at our Lower Dicker depot until you are ready.
For a village house on a renovation, a split delivery can make sense: the essentials go first so you can live in the finished rooms, and the rest follows once the builders have left. It costs more than a single delivery, but it saves stacking furniture in a room where plaster is still drying. We will tell you at survey whether it is worth it for your house.
Pau and the valleys around it also see ski-season moves, where a chalet or apartment needs furnishing before the snow arrives. Autumn is the easier time for those deliveries; once the higher roads are in winter conditions, we plan with extra care and may need a smaller vehicle for the final climb.
We are a family-run East Sussex removals firm founded in 2017, and the long run to south-west France is one our crew plans carefully rather than squeezes into a busy week. Our team pads and wraps every piece in your Sussex home and loads it themselves. If you are working up to the last day, our full packing is the simplest answer; if you want to pack yourself, we deliver quality packing materials beforehand. Glass, stone and artwork go into export-grade packing or a bespoke timber crate, and a piano heading up a village staircase needs our specialist piano movers.
We are a British Association of Removers member in the Overseas Group and work to BS 8564, the international removals standard. There is more on the rest of the country in our France removals guide and on other routes in our European removals. Read our customer feedback, or call Mark on 01323 848 008 to talk it through.
Still comparing regions? These are the other French destinations we serve by road, each covered in detail.
Allow a typical 6–8 days door to door, including customs clearance at Sevington, the Channel crossing and a multi-day drive south through France.
Yes. These houses often have a steep internal stair and a narrow lane outside, so we plan a short carry or smaller vehicle and check which large pieces will make it up the stairs.
We do, but we plan around the weather. Higher roads can be affected by snow between November and March and mountain areas require winter equipment, so we allow for that in the schedule.
When you are moving your main home to France and have owned the goods for at least six months. Your visa and start date usually set the timing; we fit the removal and the ToR1 paperwork around them.
Yes. We run road removals to both France and Spain, so the same survey and planning apply whichever side of the border you settle on. If you have not decided by the time you sell, we can store your goods at our Lower Dicker depot until you have.
Call us for a free, no-obligation quote, or use our online form. Whether it is a shared part-load or a whole house, we have handled the route before and we will handle yours with care.