Good afternoon,

We are officially in transition.

And while in principle this means nothing should change for most of us, apart perhaps from losing our vote in local elections, we are hearing a few stories where Brits in Europe are running into trouble with officials.

We had an email from a Briton in France who was told by a Gendarme police officer that his UK driving licence was already no longer valid.

We have had an email from a British Woman in Italy suggesting her mortgage request was going to be turned down because the bank has stopped lending to Brits. This sounds extreme and we are in the process of trying to verify her claim.

We have also heard of a British woman in France who was told she needed a residency permit to open a bank account and another British woman took to Twitter to say her 12-month work contract was not being renewed because of the transition period was only 11 months long.

We will be keeping a close eye on incidents like this throughout the countries we cover so if you end up in a situation where you are being treated as a third-country national, rather than a British citizen protected under the Withdrawal Agreement, please email me at the address below.

In this article we look at some of the problems Brits in Italy have been having since January including one woman was told she was now a third-country national and had to reapply for residency under different rules.

Lots of people have been asking us whether Brits in France can vote in the upcoming municipal elections. Well some of you might be able to.

And on the subject of local elections we looked at how Brexit had robbed Germany of a Scottish mayor.

There has also been a lot of confusion about which passport queues Brits should now be joining at airports. EU or non-EU? Read this if you are travelling over coming weeks and months.

Now Brexit Day has been and gone, Bremain in Spain members have been asking “what will the group do next?”. Sue Wilson outlines what lies ahead.

And you can also read this advice article put together with our friends at Eurocitizens about what the transition period means for Brits in Spain.

One of the stories of most interest to our readers from last Friday’s Brexit day was an announcement from the French government about a new residency permit platform that will soon be launched.

There was also a big story in Italy about how Brexit had had a major impact on the rules for gaining Italian citizenship.

Separately we are hearing of a big rush from Brits moving to the EU before the end of transition, which needless to say is exciting estate agents.

If you are one of those trying to get in before the drawbridge closes* (*depending on future negotiations) we’d love to hear from you. Please email me.

Thanks for reading.

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