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Civil Partnership when buying a house


Llantony
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I was chatting to friends about the (very vague) possibility of them buying a property in France.  I suggested it's simpler if a couple are married and they wondered if their UK civil partnership would be accepted as marriage for the purpose of buying a house and the inheritance laws.

Anyone know? 

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Thanks, yes I know lots of male/female couples aren't married.  My point was, if it's simpler for a couple to be married, it would also be simpler legally/inheritance-wise for same sex couples to have a civil partnership.  But only if that civil partnership was treated in France the same way as marriage.

Maz

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"My partner and myself are not married and we have bought our house 50/50 there are a lot of unmarried couples in France so its nothing unusual. "

We are in exactly the same position. There's no denying it makes life more complicated particularly when, as in our case, you both have children from previous relationships.

Hoddy
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There is an earlier thread about this but to sum it up: the Civil Partnership is not recognized in France as a Marriage or a PACS.

You could contract a PACS in France (or at the Consulat Général de Londres if one of you is French) as this would be recognized in the UK as equivalent to a CP. Note however that for inheritance purposes, the PACS is not equal to a marriage.

Remember also to update your british wills as doing a CP (and possibly a PACS) will void them (as they would be voided by a marriage).

I hope it helps!
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  • 2 weeks later...

My partner and I went to see our lawyer on Friday concerning inheritance laws, tax, etc and what he told us almost turned my hair grey!!!   My partner has children from a previous marriage and with us not being married if anything happened to him the children would inherit his half of the house (minus the 25% he is allowed to leave me).   The children in this situation can then force the sale of the house in order to get their money quicker.   Or stop the sale if they think the market is not good enough.   We could write a will declaring that I am allowed to live in the house until my death but I would have to pay 60% inheritance tax which once calculated on what our house is worth now is a scary, scary number.   We talked about civil marriage and PACS which decreases the tax to 50% which is still crazy money.

So basically the only thing to do to protect each other (from house selling and tax) is to get married.   Then we started calculating what we would still have to give the children.   Because we were not married when we bought the house the children can still fight for a certain percentage of the part of the mortgage which is already paid.   So ideally we have to get married asap.   This week if possible.   With every mortgage payment you make the amount of money children from a previous marriage can demand gets higher and higher.    It's not that we don't want to provide for them but we want it to be under our terms and not theirs!!!!

French law is really strict when it comes to protecting the children so if you have to get married to protect yourselves then sobeit!   Just remember to go the the notaire and make the correct marriage contract splitting everything 50/50 even things that you have not bought yet!

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Fiona, my OH wont marry me because he thinks if I cark it my 3 kids (from my 1st and only marriage) will take nearly all of our French property from the two babes we have together. He, and I, wish our French prop to go to our two kids, not my three. They are well looked after elsewhere. Is he correct? or is our being unmarried a huge ruddy risk?.

He seems to think not marrying is better in the long run. By the way, everything is in his name.

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As far as I know your two children from your current husband would inherit everything. Your three children from a previous marriage would receive nothing and neither would you. If the property is in his name only you will have no rights to any part of the property.

Unlike in the UK where you can write a will and decide what will happen to your property at the time of your death, this does not happen in France [blink] and you would have no rights regardless of any arrangements or wills made. Unfortunately, getting married would not change matters much if the property is solely owned by him.

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At least these issues are being more commonly discussed. There are a lot of Brits in France who still don't have a clue that their British wills (and whatever they intended to do with their estate) are irrelevant in France. There are new buyers setting up complicated ways of buying to try to get round some of these problems. And there are those like myself, who are stuffed. France might be an option for me later in life, but maybe not full-time. I like my will just the way it is.
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Wise words. Anyone who thinks that being married solve these problems needs to rethink things. In the UK, a house jointly owned by a couple as "tenants in common" (I think its called) which is the normal way, will pass to the surviving spouse free of inheritance tax. In France it doesn't, married or not. The various rules and suggestions are all too complicated and unmarried people buying in France really need to take legal advice. A quite look at the other forums though will tell you that even professional legal advice is always not consistent! 

In essence, my understanding is that if you want to co-own a house, are married and have no kids, and want to avoid death duties when one partner dies then you need a CU. Anything more complex and you need a lawyer.

Oh yeh, and don't forget that the French tax man will have your English property too if you should die whilst they deem you to be French resident. As Espresso just said, your UK will could well be irrelevant.

 

 

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Note that there are changes to French succession law due to come into force next year (1 January). Although they do not alter the basic principles of the Napoleonic Code, there are two areas where the changes are likely to prove of interest to non-French people who live in France, namely strengthening the PACS and recognition of children from previous marriages. These provisions will not be automatic, but they will allow more freedom of choice as long as things are structured in the right way.

The changes are summarised on the notaires' web site at http://www.notaires.fr/notaires/notaires.nsf/V_TC_PUB/SMSI-6R7JQL. In French only, the page has not made its way on to the English language section yet. Also, surprisingly, some notaires seem unaware of the forthcoming new law, so if you want to discuss inheritance do print out the page and take it with you. It is too early to say how effective the changes are likely to be, or what will be involved, but it looks like a big step in the right direction.

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