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.

[quote user="Thebiga"] Hi Oakbri I did ask but no one has come back to me, it did say in your post that bikes have to have a MOT every year. I knew they did not have to have a CT but where do they go for a MOT as I did think that a CT was the same thing? As I am looking at getting back into bikes in the near future. Cheers [/quote] Thebiga When you posted you asked about MOT's, CT's and then mentioned road tax so I didn't know if you were referring to bikes in the UK or France so I answered for both. I should have been a little clearer. In the UK bikes need an MOT every year as well as road tax, I don't know if bigger bikes pay more tax but I don't think so. In France there isn't currently any road tax. Bikes do not need a CT, but that is probably about to change.  

[quote user="Patmobile"] Hello again Yes, it's true I don't like noisy bikes.  What's the point of them? All my cars for the last 20 years have had catalysts and injection systems that completely cut off fuel on the overrun, so there's nothing very advanced about that.  I might ask, "Why have bikes been using old technology?" OK, maybe I didn't interpret the OP's smiley correctly.  I thought it denoted a smug tone - I'm sorry I didn't understand it. I'm not against bikes, but the idea that they are some sort of less-polluting alternative to the car is truly laughable.  Somehow the bike lobby has become so strong that politicians and the press, and maybe the bikers themselves, have swallowed this lie. Just for my information - I'm really not picking a fight now - do bikes have to undergo a regular MOT/Controle Technique test?  Do advertisemants and showroom stickers for bikes have to carry mandatory information about fuel consumption and CO2 emissions?  Is there any legislation on the way to make very large gas-guzzling bikes pay more road tax than smaller economical models? Patrick      [/quote] Patrick Modern sportsbikes don't, as far as I know use any more modern technology than cars but they are not lagging behind either. Bikes in themselves are not usually less polluting than cars the opposite in fact, small scooters are an exception, but in the case of larger bikes, an R1 for example does about 40 mpg (from memory) whereas say a Ford Fiesta will do around 50 mpg and carry more passengers. Where bikes come into their own and reduce pollution is due to the fact they don't cause traffic jams. The Paris peripherique would be totally impassable if it wasn't for the high volume of commuters who brave the rain on a bike rather than sitting in a car. Bikes do have to do an MOT, every year. They don't have to do a controle technique - YET. When I bought mine it had information on the showroom sticker regarding fuel consumption etc. Bikes, as with cars, don't pay road tax in France. The bhp limit was introduced without any real forethought as a kneejerk way to try to reduce France's dismal motorcycle road death toll ( which is far higher than the UK, despite having better, less congested roads and better weather) All the evidence I have seen so far has shown it to be a failure, the death toll is still higher here than the UK despite the brits riding round on penis extensions of 185bhp+. I guess this may be because many of the accidents are between a bike and a car, which is very one sided, and the biker almost always comes off worse. However as the new rules are only against the biker the car drivers carry on as before, which is why the death toll is not dropping. I guess the next step will be to reduce the bhp down to 45bhp, apparently we don't use any more than that anyway.  

[quote user="Bugbear"][quote user="Patmobile"][ Thank you, In choosing to compare your bike with a Ferrari or Bugatti, you make my point far more convincingly than I could. Why don't bikes have catalysts?  Why are the standards for noise emission less strict than for cars?  Why do owners of  noisy bikes fit aftermarket exhausts deliberately tuned like trumpets to make an even louder noise? [/quote] Come on Patrick, at least read whats been said and do some research before making such comments. Perhaps you just don't like being overtaken....................[:D] I didn't actually compare my bike with those cars, my reference was with full-blown sports machines of similar performance levels.  My bike, if you're interested, is completely legal, 106bhp and fitted with a factory exhaust system. I've never felt the need for more power than I currently have and don't choose to wear the 'penis-extension' that some individuals feel 150bhp gives them. Some car drivers, of course, suffer the same illusion..............[:)] Modern bikes DO have catalytic converters fitted and have done for some time. They also have some of the most advanced fuel-management systems currently available. One example is injector management that completely shuts off the fuel in closed-throttle, over-run situations. Thats why you can't smell them when they've just passed you. Gary. Live and let live perhaps.........................................[:)]   [/quote] Gary I find it interesting you dare call my comments silly and then go and talk such drivel about how environmentally friendly your restricted bike is due to its advanced fuel management system. If it has been restricted in the way mine was you may as well remove the entire system and throw it in the bin. Modern bike engines are controlled by an ECU which  manages the amount of fuel pumped into the cyclinders using various sensors, whilst the ECU can make minor adjustments for changes in local air density it cannot compensate for massive bungs fitted to the intake as was in the case of my bike, the ECU's have such limited authority they need to be reprogrammed or replaced if you fit such things as an aftermarket exhaust or airfilter. Sports bikes are considered polluters due the the low MPG they usually deliver compared to a family car, especially as you can only take a maximum of 2 people, but once the good old french bureaucrats have got hold of them you may as well drive a Sherman tank.

[quote user="Patmobile"][quote user="oakbri"] ......Maybe the slim chance of being caught is what makes the locals unconcerned, or maybe they are all friends of the earth and like to let their engines run as intended instead of spewing out excess fumes all in the name of "safety"[:D]   [/quote] All - or very nearly all motor bikes, especially any over 100bhp, are massive polluters compared with almost any car, including 4x4s.  So spare us the fake concern for the atmosphere of our planet, please. Patrick   [/quote] Patrick I never said I was concerned about the atmosphere (that's why there was a smiley), what I said was that I find the hipocrisy of the French government amazing when they introduce bhp limits, which makes bikes bigger polluters, and try to extract taxes from you all in the name of the environment. I have yet to meet a biker who is a fanatic environmentalist, however I know many members of the FFM who are very opposed to the governments interference in their hobby. I like my bike at full power as I regularly take it on the track, and use every precious bit of power it can produce, losers who think having the bike at full power is a penis extension really make me chuckle - they are pathetic, and I find it interesting that they obviously think that way about the thousands of bikers in the UK with powerful bikes.

[quote user="Sunday Driver"] I think you'll find that the French do take the bhp limit seriously. I'm sure your dealer will have reconsidered his position since January 2006 when they introduced a new law making it a criminal offence for a professional to modify a motorcycle in order to breach the legal power limit.  I suspect the penalty of a 30,000€ fine, two years imprisonment and a five year ban on carrying out his business will have influenced him.  Plus, of course the seizure of the motorcycle which he has modified.....     [/quote] Sunday Driver I said I didn't think the French worried too much simply because most of my friends ride unrestricted bikes. With regard to the new laws, I also said I didn't know what dealers do nowadays. As far as I have heard only the Paris police have a dyno, and even that information is hearsay and I don't know if it is true. Maybe the slim chance of being caught is what makes the locals unconcerned, or maybe they are all friends of the earth and like to let their engines run as intended instead of spewing out excess fumes all in the name of "safety"[:D]  

[quote user="DS19"]Does the 100hp limit apply to motorcyles registered in the UK? What if I have UK nationality and residence in France? Will this make any difference? If pulled over, will the cops rough me up? Is there indeed such a limit or is this an urban myth? Do French nationals care much about this (the 100hp limit, not my living in France) and ride unrestricted anyway? Are the penalties as severe as I've heard? €30k + prison + bike? Only curious - what are speeding tickets like? Severe? Moderate? Other? Thanks in advance. [/quote] DS19 I don't think the French take the 100 bhp limit too seriously. When I bought my bike new here the dealer routinely derestricted it at the first service. Most of my french friends with bikes have unrestricted ones. However I bought my bike 4 years ago so things may have changed with regard to people derestricting new bikes now. With regard to actually getting caught, I have heard the Paris police have mobile dynos, but outside the capital I doubt they are equipped to catch you, but I honestly don't know. I always find it amusing when I hear Sarkozy talking about carbon emissions when the French government put up STOP signs everywhere instead of GIVE WAY and they introduced the crazy 100 bhp law. My bike was restricted using massive bungs in the inlets. Of course the ECU wasn't reprogrammed so it had the fuel consumption of the QE2 and a carbon footprint the size of Cornwall, but hey that's OK as long as I don't have over 100bhp. It is a bizzare country sometimes!!!

[quote user="Gluestick"][quote user="oakbri"]  According to the internet its still beautiful in Southend. [/quote] Ha! Been raining most of the night and most of today! We're not too far from Southend-on-Mud. I thought the planet was supposed to be suffering droughts and high temps? Presently, after Paque, when it was colder than New Year and we had a blizzard [:'(], we seem to be suffering from Global Colding and Wetting! Perhaps someone can start using the CFC aerosols again please!   [/quote] Gluestick I was only going by what my google gadget was saying, and it showed sun. But it was beautiful there the last few days. My wife confirmed it stayed the same in Picardie all week - rain!!!

I was in particular need of a rant this morning. I have been working a new job in the west of Ireland for 6 weeks, doing a week there and a week off back in Picardie. The routine is becoming depressing, nice weather all week in Ireland and then returning to the usual rain and greyness of Picardie. It brightened up a bit this afternoon so I wheeled the motorbike out of the garage, by the time I got my jacket and helmet on it had started spitting again. I am already looking forward to going back to Ireland next week. Anyway hopefully the house will be finished soon and will sell. Then I am moving somewhere that actually has seasons, as opposed to the 9 months of greyness and rain followed by winter which I have sadly become used to.

Just spent 8 days away, 4 in the west of Ireland, weather very pleasant, then 4 days in Southend in the UK, weather fantastic. We took off out of London last night in perfect conditions, after 25 minutes of flight I saw a bank of black cloud ahead, you guessed it - France. Got home last night to clouds, woke up this morning to torrential rain, and its still raining. According to the internet its still beautiful in Southend. I never thought I would live in a place with worse summers than the UK, but I do. The worst thing is, my house is almost ready to sell, and the market appears to have gone flat. I have a job waiting for me in Spain as soon as I sell up but I need to finish this place and get it sold. I have promised myself and my family that this will be our last year without a summer, I just hope the market improves by the time I am ready to sell. Picardie is without doubt the greyest, wettest most boring place I have ever been. I envy those of you in the south.

[quote user="ams"] Black skies, thunder and yet more rain, whats happening, time to wake up from my dream about retiring to France and the sunny south west.   ams [/quote] I know what you mean ams. I have recently taken a job on the west coast of Ireland. Me and the Mrs speak several times a day and always compare weather, and it DEFINITELY rains more in Picardie than in Ireland [:-))] they don't tell you that on Househunters in the Sun