Our French Private Assets and Tax team has produced a
number of information sheets to help clients understand issues
associated with purchasing or owning property
and assets in France.
Please click on the links below for more details:
- Buying
property as joint owners ‘en indivision’
One of
the ways a couple can hold a property in France is 'en
indivision'. When purchasing this way, the property is
shared between the purchasers according to their financial
contribution. It is similar to some extent to a tenancy
in common in English law. Each of the purchasers owns a share
of the house and the surviving co-owner will not automatically
inherit the deceased co-owner’s share.
-
General procedures for purchasing an existing French
property
Finding a property in France is the
first stage of your process and can be done in various ways, either
with an Estate Agent, a Notaire or you might already know the
seller.
- Introduction to French wealth
tax – income tax – capital gains
tax
France taxes wealth even if no
transfer, death or disposal is involved. This tax is
frequently overlooked, or even not taken into consideration, by
those who have invested in a second house in France, which has
increased in value over the tax-free threshold. Individuals
that are not considered tax domiciled in France, are liable to pay
the wealth tax if the net value of their French-based assets is
above the € 760,000 threshold. For those domiciled in
France, their
worldwide assets will have be taken into account.
- Setting up a
French ‘community fund’
A community fund called “communauté universelle”
which can be compared in some ways to a joint tenancy agreement is
a form of marriage contract or nuptial agreement under French
Law. Under such a contract spouses can specify that all
property acquired or received by a husband and wife during their
marriage will be deemed to be communal and belong to a common fund,
“la communauté”, administered jointly and with joint
powers over these assets.
- The
small print of the 'clause tontine'
Buying a property in France has certain longer-term consequences
than the immediate enjoyment of the property. Naturally
people do not always think, or are advised, about the legal or the
tax implications of holding French assets.
