Buying a French property as an unmarried couple

[CJN]

Has anybody else been in the same boat ?

We intend to purchase a French property as an unmarried couple, and have been warned of the pitfalls when one of the partners dies. If anyone could offer advise as to which route they have taken, ie:- wills, inheritance tax issues etc.... and would like to elaborate then ANY help would be gratefully received.

Thank you

 

[Teamedup]

I suppose that there are many people in your situation, but there is no way I would be unmarried and doing this in France.

You really need good legal advice about this as you are in no way linked legally, even if you left all your money to the other person, then the non taxable allowance is only around £1000 and then it is 60% inheritance tax on the rest. Also check about others who may be able to claim against your estate, ie descendants, siblings and ascendants.

 

As I say, get legal advice from at least one source.

[Hereford]

Assuming that it is possible, the best advice is "get married"...........

Hereford

[zeb]

We bought three years ago as an unmarried couple (both with adult children from previous relationships). Discussed situation with our excellent notaire and he said (at that time) the best way to go was to have the "en tontine" clause added to the compromise which give remaining partner some rights.

We have since married but don't really know if/how this changes things.

regards.....helen

[Hereford]

Tontine clause works in the sense that surviving partner gets the property BUT - inheritance tax is payable on almost the whole value of the half when inherited. This may be OK if you have savings but can be a problem otherwise.  Even for married couples tontine is not perfect as inheritance tax payable over a certain threshold (much higher than un-marrieds).

This forum has lots of links/questions re this. The best way to go if married is a French marriage contract changing your "regime" to communalitie (spelling?!) which means that when first spouse dies it is if he/she never existed.  With a second marriage however (as in the case of original question) this means one set of cildren get disinherited and we understand that some Notaires get stressed about this. As possibly do the children. Same applies to tontine though.  Inheritance laws in France are a minefield for anyone with children of an earlier marriage - get advice!!

Hereford

PS Just seen that there is a very good thread re this on the "Legal" Forum.

[Fiona]

Hi CJN

My boyfriend and I have just spent about 6 hours at our Notaire

discussing the best course of action in just such a

situation.   My boyfriend has kids from a previous marriage

and I have none.   We bought our house whilst unmarried and

only found out about such problems through this website so thanks to

all the questions.   What we have done is to make a contract

of marriage (cannot remember the name right now) which basically makes

anything that we buy together common to the marriage.  

(Basically disinheriting the kids).   The only claim that the

kids might have is on the amount of the mortage we have already

paid.   So, without getting too complicated, imagine we have

already paid 10,000 Euros of our mortgage before we get married the

children can then claim a percentage of that amount since the house did

not yet belong to the marriage.   Therefore, we have to get

married as quick as possible - just getting all the paperwork together

now.

However, we did get one surprise - the price!!   Since the

house will be passed from one partner to the other with no inheritence

tax you have to pay a tax on the amount of the mortgage you have

already paid.   I don't know the percentage but we only have

our house since October last year and it cost us 1.300€ to make the

marriage contract.   We live in Alsace and so we have a

different regime, in other parts of France you have to add another

2.000€ (roughly) to this price.   If you are prepared for

this its not a huge amount of money but we had no idea it would cost

anything like that.

Once you are married the children have NO claim on the house

whatsoever.   We did not need permission from the kids to do

this because we bought the house 50/50.   If my boyfriend had

put more deposit than me or he paid more mortgage than me then it would

have been more complicated apparently!

We should get our papers soon and I'll be able to give you the exact name of the contract!

Hope everything works out for you.   Other tip if you are

getting married and you pay tax in France then do it in the middle of

the year - you save more tax!   And beware that the documents

you need from the British embassy cost 64€ each too!

What a hassle!!!!!

[Sunday Driver]

This thread is shown as a FAQ, but so far, I haven't seen many facts.

Unless your little corner of Alsace has different laws to that of the rest of France, I don't recall ever seeing anything that suggests you can disinherit the children....

 

 

[Nick Trollope]

'tis a little light on substance, is it not? 2 years old, too - the rules have changed recently.

So why is it a sticky?

Best (and only non-professional advice one should take), is see a Notaire. You are going to have to deal with one anyway, this advice will usually be free and it is routine to them.

 

[briwy]

My partner and myself are in the same position and are just finalising the purchase.

We both have one child from previous marriages and in the end we

decided to do the simple thing and buy the property 50/50 and leave

individual shares to our respective children.

We looked at all sorts of supposed ways round the issue but in the end

it seemed to us that there was no positive way to make sure that in the

event of the death  of one of us the other could inherit fully.

As we all get on well as a family we felt it wasnt worth the hassle and expense of trying to get round it.

We also took the view that either of us probably would not want to keep the property any way if the other died.

In our case the property is a relatively low value, (approx £100k) and

is a second home so I can understand if it is a high value and a

primary home that we may have acted differently.

Brian

[Will]

Be careful, if the French authorities think that you have done something (e.g. buying jointly as an unmarried couple) in order to avoid taxes or succession law, they can still demand the taxes. Though it's highly unlikely in Brian's case.

The succession law is changing in January next, and strengthens the PACS agreement as well as recognising children from previous marriages. The changes do not necessarily work automatically, so it more important than ever to see a properly qualified and experienced lawyer in order to get your affairs set up in the best way for you. Details of the changes are on the notaires' web site at http://www.notaires.fr/notaires/notaires.nsf/V_TC_PUB/SMSI-6R7JQL.

[Turnip]

What happens where an unmarried couple (parents of two grown up children who do not live at home) buys a property and settle in France - Does the surviving spouse remain in the property? or is she/he forced to sell up and share proceeds with their children?

Would it simplify things to be married before one retires to France?

[Tia]

This makes very interesting and worrying reading. I like Fiona have bought a property 50/50 with my partner and he has two sons, (21 and 18 years old) to his previous wife and I have none.

I wasnt aware of all this until this morning when we went to draw a will up at a UK solicitor only to be told that they can not do one for the property in France and that this would have to be completed in France due to the different rulings. Surely if we both had wills made out in France leaving the property to each other my partners share will not go to his children ????

I meant to ask the solicitor whether the ruling changes when the kids are a certain age or is it for life. It seems unfair when they have their own lives and familes and are no longer dependents to inherit my partners share, especially as one hasnt spoke to him for 2 years now and doesnt want to know him.

Does anyone know of any english speaking solicitors in the Auxerre or Clamecy (Burgundy region 89) that we can get a will drawn up ??