On 10 May 2015, Nightjar "cpb"@ insert my surname here.me.uk
grunted:

On 10/05/2015 19:35, gareth wrote:
Can one issue a cheque specifying Euros from a Brit bank account,
and, if one
does, is one loable to receive a hefty fee from one's local bank?

There are also international money transfer agencies, but these are
not regulated in the same way as banks and, if one fails while it has
your money, which happened recently, you could lose the money.

My bank (RBS) charges a ****load to do this, and on rare occasions (maybe
around annually?) I need to do this, usually for holiday-related reasons,
over the past 2-3 years I've use Transferwise. They've been very good; as
it happens I transferred 510 Euros to Portugal yesterday, which cost me in
total 374.85 GBP. The equivalent (1-2 day) service from RBS would have
been 30 GBP extra, or 10 GBP extra for a slower service. It's particularly
good when you're talking about transferring small sums - like being charged
a fee of 30 GBP to transfer 20 quid to Europe!

As Colin says, you aren't protected against them going bust on the day you
do your transfer, and I think I'd sweat a bit if I was using them to buy a
house or something! And I'd always use a credit card in preference if
possible.

If the OP's interested - suggest you sign up using my referral link, and
they'll give you a free first transfer (and me a kickback):
https://transferwise.com/u/b3dbf

--
David