oakbri

Sunday Driver & Araucaria Many thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply and supplying such concise information. I very much appreciate the efforts of you both.

Sunday Driver I am a bit confused. I haven't bought another house yet. However I am in rented accommodation since April. I understand you need to sell the house within 2 years ( a friend of mine just put his house on the market in the same village and it sold in 3 days, so I am hopeful the market is improving a little) However, although all our possessions and furniture remain in the house, we are overseas. Does this mean we will have to pay CGT. Or as we are living in a country with a tax treaty (still don't know if it is ratified) are we exempt anyway? Sorry to keep asking questions but I can't get it clear in my head. Many thanks

Hi Parsnips Yes it was my principle residence. So does that mean I have 2 years to sell from the date the Mayor declared me as having left, and still be exempt from CGT, no matter where in the world I moved to? Once again many thanks for all the replies.

Araucaria Many thanks for the advice. I will give the Embassy here a call on monday and see if they can tell me. As you say, it might be worth holding it off the market a few months if the treaty is not yet ratified.

Hi Parsnips Many thanks. I did a search on tax treaties and found, as you said, a new one was recently signed. I woke up this morning convinced I would be handing over even more of my hard earned cash to Monsieur Le Taxman, but now I think I need to open a bottle of red and celebrate. Many thanks for your reply    

Many thanks Sunday Driver From my quickly diminishing French that looks like the article I read was an English translation of the code des impots. If I am not mistaken I should then be not liable provided the treaty with Bahrain has the correct clauses in it. I know Bahrain has signed a recent tax treaty with France in accordance with all OECD regulations, so I am quietly confident. Once again many thanks  

I bought my house in France in 2002 and lived, worked and paid tax there. I then moved to the middle east at the beginning of this year and my family joined me at the start of April. When my family moved over I informed our mayor and he gave me a letter to give to the tax people to show we were leaving France. We are now putting our house on the market and I am trying to understand the implications of CGT. The house is the only house I own, I have paid income tax in France as well as the tax d'H and tax fonciere. I thought I was starting to understand everything until I came across this article.    "11.1.3. Former Residents of France No capital gains is payable on a property owned by a non-resident of France, provided you can demonstrate that you have been previously fiscally resident in France for a continuous period of at least two years.  It does not matter whether or not this residence qualification directly proceeded the period before the sale.  This is a provision in the law that has been created primarily for French residents who retire abroad, but it equally applies to international buyers who decide to return home.  The best form of evidence for demonstrating your prior residence is through tax returns submitted in France from the address of the property.  The non-resident must be a member of the EU or living in a country that has signed an appropriate tax treaty with France.  This concession is limited to the sale of only one property in any five year period and on condition that it is your only property in France at the time of the sale.  Needless to say, this rule does not exonerate the vendor from potential liability to capital gains tax in their actual country of residence!  If you do not meet the two year rule, you are liable to capital gains tax on the usual terms."   As I said, the house is the only one I own, anywhere, and until April was our only residence. We now live in a rented house in Bahrain. I am British, but now live in Bahrain which I understand has a tax treaty with France, although I don't know if it is an 'appropriate' one. So, is the article correct that as a former resident of France, for more than 2 years, I don't have to pay CGT. Other posts seem to contradict this. Many thanks in advance.

Hi Done a search on this but most posts refer to exporting vehicles to the UK. We have now moved to the  Middle East. I was going to sell my bike but my company have offered to transport it at no cost to me. I will be living a couple of miles from a beautiful F1 track that does plenty of open days so I have decided to bring the bike with me. I spoke to a bike dealer here in Bahrain, he said it is very easy to import bikes as there are very few rules and restrictions (a breath of fresh air after being in France for so long) However he mentioned getting a paper from the French embassy, but didn't know what it was called. What is the paperwork and procedure to permanently export the bike from France? Many thanks in advance.

So the saga continues. This morning we drove to the Prefecture, about 1 hours drive away. We went armed with everything I could think of, including print outs of the code de la route etc. We handed evrything over and once again were informed we had broken the law by not changing the licence within 1 year. I handed them Article R222-2 from the code de la route and also the print out from the services-public website that states it is not obligatory to change the licence. At this point the woman behind the desk started looking through a list of countries in her little handwritten book, Latvia was not there, so she informed me that Latvia was not part of the EU. I showed her the EU flag on my wifes driving licence and also pointed to a government printed map on the wall beside her that showed all the EU countries and also listed them, which clearly showed Latvia as EU. However as it was not in her handwritten list she would not have it. She then handed everything back to me except the application. She said she will "write to Latvia" (presumably to ask them to prove they are EU) and will write to us once she has an answer. Luckily my wifes licence doesn't expire till the end of this month and she is going back to Latvia to see her parents for the New Year, so we have decided to give up on this impossible task. While she is in Latvia she will renew her Licence using her parents address. My advice to anyone considering changing licences is to think carefully. I have wasyed more than a whole day and visited 2 sous prefectures and the main prefecture and spent hours talking to morons. I will NEVER change my licence here.

Ernie / Patf Many thanks for your replies. My confidence is restored, 30 minutes for a new licence is fantastic. Failing that a certfifcate from the Prefecture should keep the feds happy. I know what you mean regarding how ill informed the good old Gendarmes can be, a quick scan of the forums regarding their interpretation of the Stop sign law shows that. I am still nervous when I come to a stop sign as I never know whether to wait for 3 seconds, 6 seconds, remove my foot from the brake and apply the handbrake etc etc etc etc.

Many thanks Ernie I was considering going to the Prefecture for that very reason. My wife renewed her licence in Latvia a couple of years ago, she walked in, filled in the form and walked out with a new licence 5 minutes later. I don't think the French work at quite the same efficiency as in Latvia. I don't know if Latvia issue any kind of certfifcate, would a photocopy of her licence be acceptable in the mean time. Also how long does it take to get the licence. Once again many thanks

My wife wants to change her licence to a French one. I read up on the procedure on this forum and set off for the sous prefecture full of hope and determination. A week later we are no nearer and beginning to dispair. We went to the sous prefecture armed with her licence, a utility bill, carte de sejour, passport, passport size photos, self addressed envelope plus photocopies of all the documents. The nice lady at the sous prefecture accepted all the documents and all was going well until she noticed the date on my wifes carte de sejour that showed she entered France over 12 months ago. At this point the lady said it was impossible as she had been driving illegally due to not changing her licence within the first SIX months and we would have to go to the Prefecture to receive our fine and change the licence there. My wifes driving licence is not a UK licence but it is an EU member state licence and according to the government website she has the same rights as myself. Anyway during the commotion the lady noticed my British licence which was in the same wallet, she then tried to force an application form into my hand, I politely explained that I didn't intend to change my licence, at which point she went almost apoplectic. We left and decided to try another sous prefecture in our department. We went there a couple of days later. The lady there saw the form the first one gave us and said it was wrong. She gave us a completely different form and said we must fill it in and send everything off to the main prefecture. I went home and checked on the services-public.fr website. The form you can download there is the one we received at the first office. Also depending upon which form you read some say you must post the original driving licence plus a photocopy, the other just asks for a photocopy. As we can't seem to find anyone in the Sous prefectures who know their job can someone tell me which form we need to send, also do we have to send the original licence and if so is my wife OK to drive using just a photocopy of her own licence until the wheels of French bureaucracy grind into action and produce her new licence.

Not really SD, there are as many loonies riding <100bhp as >100bhp, what I meant that by rolling over and surrendering to rediculous laws like these will only make the morons think that their meddling in our sport was welcome, which it most certainly wasn't. The fact it hasn't yielded any results means it's only a matter of time before they introduce even more legislation in a desparate bid to get the results they desire.

Hi Big Mac Your description summed up biking quite well and I found myself grinning as I read it. As Bugbear says, anything that is any fun is being eroded and legislated against, and France is already one of the most over legislated countries in Europe. That is why I can't agree with the people whose attitude is "biking is still fun at 100 bhp", yes it is, but I think it gives a green light to the morons who make up these stupid laws and only draws even closer the dreaded day they finally ban motorcycling forever. The 100 bhp law has done nothing to reduce motorcycle deaths, and France still has a far higher rate than the UK, which has no bhp limit, so what next?

Thankyou Sunday Driver I didn't see it on this forum before. I first heard about it from the FFM at circuit Carole, they had organised a petition against it. There seemed to be a lot of signatures! Personally I don't have anything against it, unless they want to charge €100 for it.