Below we highlight just some of the ways in which our French
team have helped our clients to manage their assets in France:
making a lifetime gift to spouse
An elderly couple hold a house in Fréjus as joint tenants
(indivision). The husband was worried he could not
leave his half share to his wife in a Will because he had children
from a previous relationship. He decided to make a lifetime gift to
his wife. However, we explained that it would not have
resolved his concern as the French compulsory rules of inheritance
apply not only on death, but also on gifts, allowing the
children to claim their reserved portion from the donee. This could
have been avoided if the children had agreed to sign a
certain waiver, but our client did not want to involve
them.
Our French team advised him to sell his half of the
property to his wife at market value. His wife had
enough savings to pay for it and so no CGT was payable. The
property is now fully hers, with no claim possible from her
stepchildren.
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correcting a poorly drawn up French Will
One of our clients made an English Will and subsequently
had a French Will drawn up by her French notaire.
Mistakenly, her French Will was not limited to her
French property or assets and revoked any past
Wills. This meant that her English Will was no
longer in force.
Our French team prepared a new French Will revoking the previous
one; on the English side, our colleague in our Succession and Tax team organised the signing of
a codicil to revive the English Will.
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tax savings for non-French residents selling a
French property
A couple now living in Jersey were selling their house in Cannes
with a substantial amount of furniture and contents (30,000
€). The agent included these in the same contract as the
house. Unfortunately, agents in France often forget that the
same tax rules do not apply to non-French residents selling a
property in France and that, unless all invoices were kept, the
value of the furniture cannot be offset for capital gains tax
(CGT).
Our French team drafted a separate contract of sale
so that no reference
was made in the main contract to
the furniture and contents, thus saving our clients
10,000€.
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