No house . . . but continued taxes d'hab and foncière !

[Loiseau]

I sold my house at the beginning of November 2017. So I no longer own a property in France. And I have noticed on my French bank account (lucky I kept that going!) that a total of 100 euros has been taken on the 15th of each month since for the usual taxe foncière and taxe d'habitation. ?

Now, I did think it was up to the notaire to advise the tax office about the sale, but clearly I was wrong.

So I wrote to my erstwhile local tax office on 31 Jan, enclosing the notaire's confirmation of the sale and asking them for a refund. Predictably, there has been no reply to my letter.

But my new bank statement received today shows yet another 68+32 euros going out on 15 Feb.

Should it have been up to the notaire to inform the tax office? I presume my buyers must be delighted to have a "tax holiday"!

[suein56]

Loiseau wrote : But my new bank statement received today shows yet another 68+32 euros going out on 15 Feb.

If is my belief that it is down to you to tell the tax people and cancel the DD agreement.

Why don't you cancel your direct debit with your bank ? Just ring them then send them a confirmation letter, if they won't accept a private message.

If necessary set up an opposition to the tax people taking a payment - that should wake up the tax office.

[nomoss]

I think it is probably too soon for the tax people to have fully recorded your sale.

I have had very good response from emailing my tax office in similar circumstances.

The email address is on your TdH and TF demands.

[idun]

I don't think that the tax people will actually be concerned about something as mundane as a cancelled direct debit.  And would just insist that it is taken anyway.

It is my belief that the notaire should have let the appropriate authorities know, but yes, do so yourself.

Have you thought about calling them. I will see if I can dig up a number, as I had to call them a lot.

[NormanH]

I think that the Notaire should have done this but I have two examples which might shed some light.

I left a rented flat and got the certificate from the agents who also sent it to the tax office, but the wrong one.

1 I had demands for the TH for 3 successive years after, not only for that flat but also for two others in the same building, despite going in and seeing the person in the tax office... I finally got that put right 3 years  later  after several more emails

2) I have been wrongly charged for the TV licence for the last two years despite having ticked the box on the tax form.

I have now got last year's back, but they won't reimburse me this year's till  it as been paid from the monthly payments...

In other words you have to keep at them and you may have to wait, but it should come out in the eand..

[Loiseau]

Thanks for the input, folks.

I have just found a phone number buried in the small print, so will try that now.

Ha ha, Norman! I rather imagined that scenario with one or other of the services after the sales - which is one of the reasons I have kept some money in the bank account. All the others (FrTelecom, EDF, water board) have been brilliant at stopping their direct debits on the dot, but I knew it was too much to hope I would encounter the same efficiency all round!

[Patf]

Thanks for the warning, Loiseau, I'm fully expecting the same thing to happen to us. Sale 27th Feb.

We have the mobile no. and email address of our agent at CA and hopefully she'll deal with problems like that.

[YCCMB]

With problems of a similar nature, I found that rarest of things....the tax office actually answered my emails and not only that, but when I asked them to respond by email assuring me that they had duly amended my dossier.....they did!

[nomoss]

Betty.

I agree that the tax offices are probably the one of the few organisations in France which respond promptly and effectively to emails, although our Prefecture is also right up there.

The tax office in Carcassonne has promptly answered every email I have sent them since I have been here, the first record I still have was in 2005, and they have sorted out every problem, large or small, to my complete satisfaction.

[richard51]

But she is intimating that tax offices dont usually answer, so why agree? You are confirming that they do probably most of the time.

[Loiseau]

But Richard, they are both praising the EMAIL service - which I must admit I had never considered, as I thought it even less likely that I would receive any attention.

Though I will now...

[nomoss]

[quote user="Loiseau"]But Richard, they are both praising the EMAIL service - which I must admit I had never considered, as I thought it even less likely that I would receive any attention.

Though I will now...[/quote]

Thanks for trying to explain, Birdie, I'm afraid I just couldn't be bothered in this case.

I have been pointing out for years, on here and on other forums, the merits of email contact with gov't departments.

It enables one to check the details, and one's French, carefully before sending, all emails get an immediate automatic reponse, which constitutes proof of delivery, so that the email becomes a matter or record, and someone is obliged to respond reasonably promptly.

[YCCMB]

"She" is intimating that it is rare to get an email answered in France, in general. The tax office, in my experience, is an exception.

I think nomoss and Loiseau both got the gist.

[Gardian]

.......... and so I think, did most of the rest of us !

[Judith]

I have found that the tax people do indeed reply to emails, reasonably promptly too, which is more than can be said when phoning anywhere, and being passed from pillar to post.

They do have a wonderful way of sending reminders which do not tell you to which unpaid bill they might be referring.  Twice now, once today, hence it is in my mind, we have had bills not arrive ... and the first we know is the reminder.  As we usually pay promptly this can be worrying, but emails do work, I must agree.

As for the OP, my sister spent some years trying to get the tax foncière etc to come to her after our father gifted us the house in France ... it wasn't entirely comforting to see that they still had our mother listed, even though she had died some years before.  She (my sister) made contact with the relevant council by email and it was eventually sorted.  Even the bank (CA) can work with email now.  How things have changed since we first owned property here, long before we became resident!!

[richard51]

So, the message I am now getting is that email in France is indeed a good method of communication in general.

Am I getting the right message?

[NormanH]

As with all these questions one can only quote anecdotes of one's own experience, and generalisations  aren't of much use.

That said I have found that the internal messaging service

'ma messagerie sécurisée' in

https://cfspart.impots.gouv.fr/gaia2-zu-mapi/

more effective than an email to the address on the tax form

It was this system that finally resolved my problem above.

I certainly have relied on email/internal messages for years for tax  affairs, banking, contact with Directe Energie, my Mutuelle  etc...

[woolybanana]

My experience of using email to sort out a ta d’hab. problem with the tax office was excellent, swift replies and immediate explanation and action.

But I would not want to extrapolate a general rule from this at all, Richard.

[Loiseau]

Well, quelle surprise!

I just received letters from both taxe d'hab and taxe fonc saying they are going to reimburse me for the Jan and Feb payments taken in error. 200 euros - enough for me to buy you all a drink perhaps, as long as you're fairly abstemious!

I have no idea whether it was my letter of 31 Jan that produced this result, or whether it would have slowly sorted itself out with no prompting from me. I did try and phone them the other day, but of course it was the wrong day or the wrong time.

[YCCMB]

Yay! Mine's a glass of tap water! Cheers!

[NormanH]

And I got a cheque for this year's TV redevance [:)]

[Patf]

I've emailed our tax office and they replied straight away.

But we have to pay to the end of the year because we sold in Feb.. Though I think we might be exempt for Tax Hab.

Which means keeping our account open and topped up at CA.

[cajal]

[quote user="Patf"]

But we have to pay to the end of the year because we sold in Feb. [/quote]

Hmm? I thought that your notaire would have apportioned the Fonciere charge between yourselves and your purchaser. ie 2 / 12 for you and 10 / 12 for your purchaser. That principal has always been used whenever we have bought/sold properties in France.

[mint]

Cajal is spot on, TF is proportioned;

Pat, if you were liable for TH before, then you will pay from January for the whole year.

[idun]

Well it is not the law that it has to be apportioned, just that it is the 'done' thing.

However, even when it gets apportioned, it is strictly based on the previous years figures, so that if it goes up then the seller is liable for the difference......

....... as I said, the buyer is not liable for the bill, the seller is.

Patf, unless you are paying for your bank account, I would leave it open for quite some time, at least two years, if not longer.