EU Rights Transfer?

[Sue]

If my husband becomes resident in France before Brexit on 31/12/20 and I join him in 2021, what status will I have with regard to EU benefits?

Will they transfer automatically due our marital status or will I have non EU status?

Hope you can help, any insight would be gratefully received.

[EuroTr@sh]

https://ec.europa.eu/info/european-union-and-united-kingdom-forging-new-partnership/eu-uk-withdrawal-agreement/implementing-withdrawal-agreement/citizens-rights_en

"The Withdrawal Agreement protects those EU citizens residing in the United Kingdom, and UK nationals residing in one of the 27 EU Member States at the end of the transition period.

"It also protects the family members that are granted rights under EU law (such as current spouses and registered partners, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren and a person in an existing durable relationship) to join their family member in the future."

Not sure what you mean by "transfer" of rights. As I understand it, if your OH begins his period of legal residence before 31.12.20, he will be protected under the Withdrawal Agreement. That means that although no longer an EU citizen he will retain many of the rights that EU citizens have, including the right to continue living in the country where he was resident on 31.12.20, subject to the usual conditions that apply to Freedom of Movement. As his wife you will have the right to join him, but you won't have the same rights that he has. Does that answer your question?

[NickP]

I'm slightly mystified as to why you don't just apply for residency at the same time as your husband. Surely if you declare that your French home is your main residence, there's nothing to stop you. You then could be visiting or working in the UK. Good luck.

[EuroTr@sh]

It's not always quite that simple, NickP.

For instance if the OP is still employed full time in the UK, and she doesn't have paperwork from HMRC as a cross border worker, the prefecture is unlkely to accept that she's correctly exercising her freedom of movement in France, are they. You can "declare" your French home is your main residence as loudly as you like, but if your paperwork says otherwise it won't get you a CdS.

[NickP]

So surely if she applies to HMRC as a cross border worker? I don't see a problem.

[EuroTr@sh]

Well of course she can. If she's prepared to do the commute, which not everybody is. Then there's other questions such as social charges on her foreign income if she's resident in France and working in the UK.

But none of that is the question she asked, which is the one I was trying to answer ! And we don't know if it is work that's the reason why she can't move this year - that was just one possibility I suggested as a "for instance".

[NickP]

Well, I'm obviously looking at this cross border thing in a too simplistic way. I spent most of my working life working in other countries, the only commute I ever did was to get there to start a job and to when the job was completed I commuted home. Sometimes the job was for a few days and sometimes lasted months. As for social charges you only pay once,

at one time when working in Austria and being paid out of Austria I paid local tax and insurance, that was then allowed against my normal charges in the UK. It was all very simple.

[suein56]

NickP wrote the following post at 11 Jul 2020 8:12:

Well, I'm obviously looking at this cross border thing in a too simplistic way. I spent most of my working life working in other countries ..

As for social charges you only pay once, at one time when working in Austria and being paid out of Austria I paid local tax and insurance, that was then allowed against my normal charges in the UK. It was all very simple.

Yep .. but the UK will no longer have any connection to the EU after December 31 2020 .. the UK will become a third world country, so such matters won't be arranged so simply anymore.

[EuroTr@sh]

NickP wrote "As for social charges you only pay once"

By "social charges" I didn't mean social security, I meant the "contiributions sociales" that France levies on foreign income. There are exclusions and exemptions and they keep tweaking the rules because it's a bit controversial - it's a tax but not a tax - but I believe that if you live in France and have a salary from abroad, you would currently pay 9.2% starting at the first euro - so can be quite significant.

I think this is unique to France, or at least the uK doesn't have an equivalent.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F2971

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/N17580#:~:text=La%20contribution%20sociale%20g%C3%A9n%C3%A9ralis%C3%A9e%20(CSG,capital%2C%20avec%20cependant%20quelques%20exceptions.

[EuroTr@sh]

Re "cross border workers" - in this context it has a very specific meaning, it's not just a general term for any worker who works between countries. The EU has a special scheme for people who meet its definition of a "cross border worker", with precise rules on social security coordination, specific criteria that must be met, and special forms that have to be issued. The rules state that you need to commute on a daily or weekly basis.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/work-abroad/cross-border-commuters/index_en.htm

[NickP]

OK Eurotr@sh, I'm obviously looking at this from a different angle. But, I still don't see a problem, as far as I see lots of people live in France and work in the UK. Probably the term cross border has thrown my thinking out of kilter?

[EuroTr@sh]

The problem is that this is all tied up with residence rights, so if residence rights are an issue for you, you have to be careful to do it properly.

When you used to work abroad, were you in fact a UK citizen living in the UK in between projects? If so, as a UK citizen you had the unconditional right to reside in the UK - you could work or not work, leave the UK, come back again, nothing affected your right to reside. But, when an EU worker exercises freedom of movement to live in another EU country, they have certain conditions to meet. An EU citizen who has gone to live in the UK but has worked abroad, like you did, may find it difficult/impossible to obtain settled status now because they wonn't have paid social security contributions in the UK during the periods they were working abroad. And under the settled status scheme, if your NIC record is incomplete then your application may fail because any periods you weren't paying NICs, may not count as "legal" residence.

That's very similar to the position the OP would be in France. Normally, if you exercise freedom of movement as a worker you are expected to work in the country where you live and pay social security contributions and tax in that country.

The EU cross border workers scheme, which is basically a social security coordination arrangement, removes the problem because under the EU directive any worker who works on this basis, ie lives in one EU state and commutes to work daily or weekly across a border, is considered to be correctly exercising freedom of movement. As you say, many Brits live in France and work in the UK, and I think you'll find they all hold cross border worker status and they all have workers S1s (as they used to be called, I think they have a different name now) registered with CPAM. Provided they do, France will accept that they're exercising FoM correctly as a cross border worker. If they don't, they risk finding themselves with a problem at the end of the year.

Sorry to ramble on but I thought it might be worth explaining how it works, cos there may be lurkers on the forum who are trying to make last minute plans to move and wondering what the options are..

[NickP]

I was indeed a UK citizen and I paid all my taxes and social security payments in the UK at all times, I still pay my taxes in the UK and I'm now a French resident. As for health care that is taken care of by my S1 as a retired person and that won't change after Dec due to the Withdrawal Agreement. As for the lurkers, they must do what is right for them as I did, I just feel that sometimes people overthink these situations and make it complicated for themselves.

[nomoss]

[quote user="NickP"]I was indeed a UK citizen and I paid all my taxes and social security payments in the UK at all times, I still pay my taxes in the UK and I'm now a French resident. As for health care that is taken care of by my S1 as a retired person and that won't change after Dec due to the Withdrawal Agreement. As for the lurkers, they must do what is right for them as I did, I just feel that sometimes people overthink these situations and make it complicated for themselves.[/quote]

Maybe you were in a similar position to mine.

I worked in many different countries, but left it up to my company to look after the legalities and pay the taxes, as I was on a fixed net salary, and everything else was their problem[:D]

However, since I (and my family) only visited the UK occasionally, I didn't pay any taxes there.

[EuroTr@sh]

"at one time when working in Austria and being paid out of Austria I paid local tax and insurance"

" paid all my taxes and social security payments in the UK at all times"

" As for social charges you only pay once"

Right... so when you were paying local insurance in Austia you were also paying social security payments in the UK...hmm.

" I still pay my taxes in the UK and I'm now a French resident."

But presumably you submit an income declaration in France? And presumably you don't have a UK state pension because if you did, that would definitely be taxable in France as per the UK/France tax treaty?

As you say, everyone's situation is different and everyone has to do what's right for them. But I think it helps to know the rules, or how do you know what's right for you.

[NickP]

Of course, I have a UK state pension, plus a private pension, I pay my tax in the UK I haven't yet declared in France but will next year. How do I know what's right for me? I pay an accountant to advise me on that subject.

[nomoss]

[quote user="NickP"]Of course, I have a UK state pension, plus a private pension, I pay my tax in the UK I haven't yet declared in France but will next year. How do I know what's right for me? I pay an accountant to advise me on that subject.[/quote]

So are you yet another one of those forum members who show themselves as living in France but really don't?

[suein56]

NickP wrote the following post at 11 Jul 2020 22:57:

Of course, I have a UK state pension, plus a private pension, I pay my tax in the UK I haven't yet declared in France but will next year. How do I know what's right for me? I pay an accountant to advise me on that subject.

So you haven't yet filled in the form to tell the UK that you no longer live there ?

If you haven't been completing a French tax return how are you going to prove your right to stay in France for your CDS ?

[idun]

From the first post, I gather that neither of them are french residents at present. So won't have anything to prove residence for some time. And I don't think that the Mairies are obliged to do anything for three months, are they? That is how it used to be.

I realise that everything says that people have until the end of the year to move to France, but they won't have tax declarations until 2022 will they ? Well I suppose that would depend on when they move, probably nothing or little to declare next early summer for 2020, so the first proper declaration des impots would be done in 2022.

Maybe everything will be simpler than I imagine, NEVER was for us, as we always had, at best hiccups and at worst battles to get stuff done,  just the way it was.

The service public web site has all the details as to what paperwork people have to get their cartes,  for those who will be working in France and also inactifs too. And what will those cards be called in the future, sejour, or resident?[blink]

[EuroTr@sh]

@idun - apparently they are creating a special new carte de séjour just for us: "En application de cet accord, ces ressortissants devront demander la délivrance des titres de séjour portant la mention « Accord de retrait »." Which I suppose is necessary, because the type of CdS you hold has to reflect your rights and us Brexit Brits will have a mishmash of rights - not the same as EU citizens and not the same as TCNs either.

Re mairies, they are no longer obliged to issue any kind of attestation of residence. Some will but many won't. Officially people are now supposed to do their own attestation sur l'honneur which is supposed to be accepted. When I went for my CdS in 2018 the prefecture insisted on an attestation from the mairie. At first the mairie secretary said no we don't do that any more, but when I explained about the prefecture she went off on a rant about how the prefecture don't know what they're doing and it would be better if they left all this kind of thing to the mairies who would make a better job of it, and in the end she agreed to do me an attestation, more to spite the prefecture I think than to help me out!

I would guess that new arrivals without much in the way of justificatifs will be mostly be given the benefit of the doubt when they first apply for a provisional CdS, and their dossier will be scrutinised more closely when they apply to renew their card either part way through the 5 years or at the end of the 5 years. But I do think people shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking "That was easy, they've given me my provisional CdS so I don't need to bother any more" because in due course they will need to put together a dossier covering 5 years starting before 31.12.20 and it will need to be complete.

Since NickP is a new arrival in France and presumably hasn't had much experience of dealing with French administrations that probably explains his comment about feeling people are "overthinking" things. My experience hasn't been as challenging as yours, idun, but there have been times when I've had to stand my ground,, which you can only do if you've done your homework and you understand the situation enough to be able to argue your case and counter their objections. "Underthinking" things is risky IMHO because if you underthink things this year and don't meet the conditions because you didn't think about them hard enough, you won't have a leg to stand on next year or the year after if they query your application, and it will be too late to go back and change the facts. As a retiree NickP's situation is very straightforward and as long as his accountant is competent he will be fine, but I think maybe he should bear in mind that not everyone's situation is quite so simple.

[idun]

Eurotrash said:  Re mairies, they are no longer obliged to issue any kind of attestation

of residence. Some will but many won't. Officially people are now

supposed to do their own attestation sur l'honneur which is supposed to

be accepted. When I went for my CdS in 2018 the prefecture insisted on

an attestation from the mairie. At first the mairie secretary said no we

don't do that any more, but when I explained about the prefecture she

went off on a rant about how the prefecture don't know what they're

doing and it would be better if they left all this kind of thing to the

mairies who would make a better job of it, and in the end she agreed to

do me an attestation, more to spite the prefecture I think than to help

me out!

Well, I have obviously woken in a happy mood again, as this made me laugh.

Our Mairie, well, they were not at the top of their game, ever and they were not up to date with anything and our Prefecture was. Who knows, maybe these days they are.

One thing I am in favour of, and it is indicated on the service public web site, that people have the means to keep themselves if they move to France.

[NickP]

Lots of conjecture going on here, We've had our house in France for 16 years so are well aware of French bureaucracy. As for living in France, until we get our application for residency sorted which can't be done until after October, no way am I going to inform the UK that I am a French resident, why would I, until I am officially? So also " one of those who show themselves as living in France but do not" What's that all about? ??

[idun]

Well isn't it the same as those who move to France and work, unregistered workers and imply that they don't really live in France.

Some do this.

And like you NickP, I would be cautious about when I started the ball rolling, leaving it until three months residence is up, I would just keep the tickets from when you crossed into France, as future proof as the start date.

And that is what we did when we moved back to the UK, as it it would have been handy when if the HMRC started checking up on us.

[EuroTr@sh]

@idun, it amused me too.

From what I gathered it used to be the Mairie's job to issue ID cards to French nationals but the prefecture has now taken that job over, and our secretary seems to have taken that as a personal insult. As soon as I said "but the prefecture insists..." she started telling me that they don't know the rules and they make difficulties for the sake of it, she's had lots of people complaining to her about having to make four or five trips to the prefecture and it's a great inconvenience for them and it all worked much better when Mairies dealt with it. As it happens our Mairie does seem pretty well on top of things but how justified she was in her rant I don't know, however I just kept saying Oui tout à fait, oui bien sûr, and it worked to my advantage.

NickP I think you may have misunderstood how it works. It's not a matter of applying for permission to become officially resident in France and waiting for the answer before you do. Your entitlement to a CdS derives from being ALREADY LEGALLY RESIDENT in France. That's not conjecture, it's fact. For retirees it makes very little difference but for workers for instance, being properly out of the UK system and into the French system before you submit your dossier will make the difference between getting a CdS and not. Which brings us nicely back to the OP, because if there is some reason why she has to remain officially UK resident for the present, it would be a waste of time trying to claim that she lives in France. A person can only be primarily resident in one place at one time, so if she's resident in the UK she can't simultaneously be residing in France..

[idun]

I have had some right barnies at our Mairie.  Lots of stories, but IF I had something to say, I would say it there and not go moaning in the village, which in fact, also went in my favour.

So my openness was in an odd sort of way appreciated and later, the head clerk went over and above her duties to help me out.

In my early days, I had to call the Prefecture and get them to inform the Mairie of the change in rules, so it is hardly as if I was easy to deal with.[Www] The problem was, I told the Mairie they must have been wrong, and they said they weren't, so I called the Prefecture and there were new rules and I asked them to call the Mairie, which they did and all was sorted.

In general the staff in the Mairie were OK. The Maires, well, we had about five who were dreadful, and likely corrupt too, and ONE WONDERFUL one, a good and decent man. That is why it used to amuse me when folk used to come on here and say that they wanted to introduce themselves to the Maire and take them a bottle. Being Maire is no indication of anything at all or they being a person one would want to be chummy with.

Those five, I doubt I would have done the proverbial on them if they were on fire. [blink] But I know a good Maire when I see one, but they are not all 'good' in my experience.