Moving forward

They say that moving house is one of the most stressful experiences of your life, up there with divorce and loss of life. Well, it’s our turn next week!

After almost 10 years in the Poitou Charentes, we are turning a new page, and will be moving further south into the Corrèze department, close to the glorious Dordogne valley. Saying goodbye to our French neighbours is proving especially difficult. They have appreciated our efforts to integrate into their social network, and a few tears have been shed during the face to face meetings that we have had to date.

This is making the decision to move even harder than we imagined. Aperos last night continued ‘till almost midnight, under a starry sky and a lovely warm evening. Our immediate neighbours bought us a lovely momento of all things local, beautifully packaged in a wicker basket.

This weekend we prepare all of the boxes for the removal van, physically challenging work as well as emotionally draining. At least we know that our buyer has sent his money to the Notaire ahead of time, and we have the transfer of utility services all in hand. We even managed this week to successfully transfer our existing telephone number to our business associates so that we don’t lose any calls.

All of the tasks are slowly being ticked off, but we are now looking forward to the next chapter in our French adventure, in the Vallée de la Dordogne.

Peter Elias (Agent Commercial)
http://www.allez-francais.com/

Great renovation project

A renovation project with a lot to offer.

Comprising of a detached house with 2 rooms of 25 & 15m², plus a smaller room of 10m². 1st floor to convert with 2 rooms of 20m². The property sits at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, with no passing traffic or nuisances. Adjoining the house is an open barn of 40m² that could easily be incorporated into the living accommodation. The stonework in this barn is very attractive.

Outside there are attractive gardens of 563m² with a small outbuilding and a well. The property has water & electricity available, but does need a fosse septique, but there is plenty of space available, and the soil tests etc have already been carried out.

The village is little more than 5 minutes from the popular market town of Chef Boutonne, with its café pavement culture and good range of local shops & supermarkets. There is a good choice of regional airports and the coast is about an hour distant at La Rochelle.

Peter Elias Agent Commercial http://www.allez-francais.com/

Bargain properties

In times of difficult market conditions there are always times when some vendors are under more pressure than others, and their prices become very negotiable.

This is when a buyer needs to work with their property agent, so that they know which ones are negotiable and which are pretty fixed on their price.

Currently, we have properties raning from just over 120,000 Euros to those at around 500,000 Euros that are quite negotiable. Get in touch with your requirements and we can tell you which ones you could pick up at a bargain price.

Happy hunting !

Peter Elias (Agent Commercial)
www.allez-francais.com

Survive France Network

During recent weeks, I have joined a network called “Survive France” and found the people there interesting, helpful and able to communicate in words of more than one syllable, which seems a challenge on some forums in France !

There are a number of interesting groups on the network, such as the following :-

Bloggers in France

Computer corner

Rural writers

Photography club

Business owners in France

Music professionals in France

Plus one of course for the Poitou Charentes

There are many more, and you can start your own group. A great idea and one that I am more than happy to recommend to our clients.

Peter Elias (Agent Commercial) http://www.allez-francais.com/

Dordogne Valley properties

Having worked in the Poitou Charentes area for 9 years, the time is rapidly approaching for our move, (at the end of August), and subsequent relocation to the Dordogne valley area of southern Correze and the northern Lot departments.

Prices are pretty much the same, but the scenery quite spectacular, often having a real WOW factor.

We have just started to add properties to our portfolio in this area, and are going to focus on an area of around 30 minutes from the really beautiful town of Beaulieu sur Dordogne.

So if you are looking to move to this pretty area, home to several of "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France", let me know, and indeed if you are selling !

Bon weekend,

Peter Elias (Agent Commercial) http://www.allez-francais.com/

An SCI for Unmarried Partners

There is no longer any French inheritance tax between spouses or couples who have a French civil partnership agreement. However, a live-in partner, without a French civil partnership agreement is effectively treated as a stranger and has an allowance of only €1500. Anything he or she inherits after that will then be taxed at a rate of 60% – ouch! Such a tax bill may well mean having to sell the property to clear the debt!

Some partners could of course get married and solve most of their French tax problems but most people do not wish to make a decision to get married purely for tax reasons and this option is not available to same-sex partners. What else can be done to mitigate heavy taxes?

Civil partnership agreements

Since 15th November 1999, couples, either heterosexual or same-sex, who want to live together and share their lives may make a pacte civil de solidarité (PACS) which has legal recognition in France. This is in fact a contract by which the couple declare that they are sharing their lives and that they wish to register the fact and have their relationship made subject to the 1999 law. However, at the moment this option is only available to those who are either French or resident in France.

SCI tontinière – a French property-owning company with a twist

Another rather neat solution, available to residents and non-residents, heterosexual and same-sex partners, is to set up a particular type of company known as a Société Civil Immobilière (SCI) Tontinière. An SCI is a French property-owning company suitable for small numbers of people or family groups, set up to manage and/or let property. It is possible to have a special form of this company whereby the shares are held ‘en tontine’. Shares held in this way cannot be said to belong to either of the owners. It is as if both partners are holding the property on trust until the other dies. At this point the survivor is said to own all of the shares retrospectively (from the date of purchase) and the deceased is considered never to have had any rights as far as ownership of the shares is concerned.

The real advantage of this is that because the transfer of shares to the survivor is not considered an inheritance but instead is treated in the same way as a sale of shares, then the rate of tax paid is only 5%, as with any transfer of shares. For an unmarried partner, this represents an enormous saving on the usual rate of inheritance tax for ‘strangers’ of 60%. Not only that, the rights of the deceased’s reserved heirs, ie children, are effectively eliminated with regard to the assets of the SCI.

Previously, there were disadvantages to this structure in the UK. This is because the Inland Revenue would treat the shareholders as if they were directors receiving benefits in kind from the company. Thus the shareholders would be charged income tax on the deemed rental value of the property for all the time it was available to them during the year. Fortunately, provisions in the 2007 budget provide that this measure will be abolished from 2008 and apply retrospectively. Therefore anyone setting up an SCI now is unlikely to have any tax problems at home.

Are you eligible to use a tontine clause?

There are some provisos to the use of a tontine clause whether in a purchase contract or the statuts (articles of association) of an SCI. These are that the couple must contribute equally in financial terms to the purchase and that they must be of similar age. The reason for this latter proviso is that the people concerned must have the same life expectancy to have an equal chance of benefiting from the tontine clause eventually. The reason for the former is that if the contributions were not equal, there would be a disguised gift and hence an avoidance of tax. It might also be seen as a deliberate attempt to benefit the partner to the disadvantage of any reserved heirs, which may be considered an abuse of law in France, leading to the arrangement being treated as void.

Peter Elias (Agent Commercial) http://www.allez-francais.com/

with special thanks to Sue Busby of France Legal

The perils of a private sale

Something happened this week to a client that had viewed with our agency in June, and it has prompted me to comment again about the dangers of buying and indeed selling privately, by cutting out the agent.

There are a thousand and one things that could go wrong, but between them, this buyer and vendor had contrived to hit upon several classics and had found themselves in a dispute, that doesn't look like being resolved.

Why do vendors market properties privately ? Sometimes to give the impression of a lower price, (minus the 6% or so agency fees). But many sellers advertise at the same price in any event ! Often, private ads are out of date, and the agency sites have a lower price than a private ad. Sometimes, the vendor will have advised the agency of their "bottom line", so the agency can steer a buyer towards a successful offer, rather than a blunt take it or leave it offer.

We have produced a guide for both buyers & sellers explaining why they should use an agency. They may actually save money in the end!

In our (perhaps biased) opinion, there is no substitute for using a professional agent, who is likely to market the property more successfully than a private vendor, and get a sale agreed quickly, at a price determined by the market. We look forward to working with you given the opportunity.

Peter Elias (Agent Commercial)

http://www.allez-francais.com/index.php