Selling property UK, living in France

If you’re on Facebook mokryna this group may well have the answer.

I do not think there would be any tax to pay in the UK, but you might be liable to capital gains tax in France. You can usually set one against the other. There is no extra tax on a property that is a second home

We are in the process of doing the opposite to you. Selling a house in France, we being England based, and British tax payers. In our case we have no capital gains tax to pay in France as we have owned the house for over 30 years, but will need to pay capital gains tax in the UK.

Yes MOnia I am a bit worried how the French tax system works secondary home sales out.

Thank you Jaxjacky I will sign up. There seems to be a Facebook page for everything.

I don't know how CGT on out of UK homes works out. However, brother said our parents avoided taxes through charitable donation of outside UK property - apart from taking gains. Perhaps that is an option?

Would it depend on what you were going to do with the funds from the sale once they were transferred to France? We sold property in the UK but as we were going to use the proceeds for business purposes in France there was no tax to pay and no questions asked.

Mokryna All I know (or think I know) is that CGT is charged on all house sales in France, regardless of whether it is your main residence or a second home, but the amount pays goes down gradually until, at 30 years, no CGT is due at all. As we have had our holiday home for 32, nearly 33 years, we have no tax to pay.

However when we will have to pay CGT on the amount when we bring it back to Britain. However, there are a whole lot of things we can add to the original price to reduce the amount of taxable gain. We have made immense changes to the house, it was bought as a project and we have doubled the amount of useable space, added bathrooms rewired etc, but, unfortuantel DH did most of it, so the only costs were materials and we can only claim for those works, such as window replacement and some plumbing, which was done by tradesmen.

Thank you MOnia

Mokryna If you have to pay CGT in the UK, use an accountant to do the calculation.

I used to own a flat I let out. I sold it nearly 20 years ago, i did a back of the envelope calculation of the amount of CGT tax I would need to pay, but then went to an accountant, who cost me couple of hundred pounds but saved me nearly £5,000 in tax.

Whenever you sell a second home in the UK you have to report the sale to HMRC within 60 days and pay over any tax due.

If at any time the property was your PPR there will be a reduction for that period - ie the gain is time apportioned.

Being resident in France you are liable to declare the sale of the flat on your French tax return. If you have a chargeable gain in France and consequently a tax liability, you will receive a tax credit against the French tax liability if there is one.

Before moving to France we sold our long term home in the UK and bought a smaller house in England. The gain was time apportioned between the period it was my PPR and the time it was let.

In England we had a chargeable gain but it was less than the CGT allowance.

In France we made a loss because of the exchange rates - so you will need to find the exchange rate for the date of purchase and the date of sale.

The expenses/allowances that can be deducted differ between France and England so you will need to do a separate calculation for each country.

I suggest that you look at the HMRC website as it is quite easy to follow and tells you exactly what you are allowed to claim. You can also file the calculation on line but you will need to set up an account with HMRC.

We saw a French accountant who did a rough calculation - we were seeing him for something else - and he said we would owe about 5000 euros. I was using a French based English accountant at the time and her colleague did the correct calculation for us - no tax to pay.

There is no tax to pay if and when you sell your home in France if you are resident.

MOnica there is no CGT on your main residence in France.

Mamie It is a holiday home, not our main residence.

All I know (or think I know) is that CGT is charged on all house sales in France, regardless of whether it is your main residence or a second home. Hmmm, I think it depends on the French lawyer. A different lawyer, a different day and it's all a different matter. The French lawyer is responsible for collecting the taxes, but a nice bottle of whisky and a few jars of marmalade does the trick. We sold a 6 bedroom house plus 3 other houses on site, all as our main residence no questions asked. We'd have had to say we played musical beds each week if questioned!

Joseann I assume that you were letting out 3 of the 4 houses. I assume that you were declaring the income received?

A bottle of whiskey and marmalade to a Notaire in my part of France would get you more than you bargained for, like the Tresor P ublic.

This Facebook group might help.
Brits living in the EU27 (7 yrs after brexit)
www.facebook.com/groups/704637150153964/?ref=share

We negated all capital tax in France when we sold as we had retained all builders' receipts. The value of those was a bit more than the profit on sale. It's a good idea to keep them. Unfortunately DIY doesn't count even if you have the receipts for materials.