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Who pays the Tax D'habitation when the house has been sold??


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We owned a house in France until March 2014. We have today received the bill for Tax D'habitation 360 euros due by end of December. Can anyone confirm that we don't owe for this tax bill? or it is produced in arrears in which case do we only owe for 3 months.? Not sure what to do about this.

Thanks

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[quote user="M"] Can anyone confirm that we don't owe for this tax bill?[/quote]

I am in precisely the same position, having sold my previous house in March 2014.  As Mint rightly says the liability for the whole year is generated on the preceding 1st of January.

However, the tax is only imposable on locaux habitables  -  and you may be able to obtain an exoneration if the house was uninhabitable on 1st January by virtue of a complete absence of furniture.

In my case I emptied the house on 5th December 2013, and indicated this fact at the time to the garde champêtre and to the mairie.  (This was not entirely necessary as the mairie was only a few yards away, and my removal provided the chief entertainment in the town that day.)

In due course, when the bill for the taxe d'habitation arrived, I simply asked for an exoneration, providing a copy of removal bill as evidence.

There is a little discussion of the matter  -  including what minimal amount of furniture is considered to render a place 'habitable' (viz. not much), and what kind of documentary evidence may be required  -  here :  http://www.linternaute.com/argent/maquestion/impots/taxe-habitation-avocat.shtml

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As has been said you are the perosn that owes that tax, if however you no longer live in France then c'est à vous de decider.

The taxe fonçière bill should have been apportioned between yourself and the new owner based on last years bill, there may be a small balancing payment to make if it has increased.

Another example of an overly complicated system that creates unnecessary work.

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 This was always made clear on the back of the bill for those that own, live in a property on the 1st of January... is it not on the back of the bill anymore?

So paid in arrears, no. The bill always comes for the actual year in summer/autumn of that year and has to be paid later in the year, (or one can have a prelevement). It has been like this as long as I remember. It means that unless you bought your house on the first of January, (unlikely) you should not have had a taxe d'habitation bill for your first year, it would have been the following year that it arrived.

There is more information on the service-public.fr web site, a site which has lots of very useful information.

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[quote user="Tancrède"][quote user="M"] Can anyone confirm that we don't owe for this tax bill?[/quote]

I am in precisely the same position, having sold my previous house in March 2014.  As Mint rightly says the liability for the whole year is generated on the preceding 1st of January.

However, the tax is only imposable on locaux habitables  -  and you may be able to obtain an exoneration if the house was uninhabitable on 1st January by virtue of a complete absence of furniture.

In my case I emptied the house on 5th December 2013, and indicated this fact at the time to the garde champêtre and to the mairie.  (This was not entirely necessary as the mairie was only a few yards away, and my removal provided the chief entertainment in the town that day.)

In due course, when the bill for the taxe d'habitation arrived, I simply asked for an exoneration, providing a copy of removal bill as evidence.

There is a little discussion of the matter  -  including what minimal amount of furniture is considered to render a place 'habitable' (viz. not much), and what kind of documentary evidence may be required  -  here :  http://www.linternaute.com/argent/maquestion/impots/taxe-habitation-avocat.shtml

[/quote]

How observant of you to have picked up on that point[:D]

Now that you have mentioned this,Tancrède, I would also point out that, if your income is below a certain level (you will have to check the actual figure), then you wouldn't have to pay.

I must admit that, from the tone of your post, I assumed that you are above the threshold and are used to paying.

It was relatively straightforward for us.  I went to the trésorerie locale (yes, I do know that it is normaly the impots bods who levy taxes) and to our mairie and told them that we were moving out and had removed our furniture.  Nobody queried what proportion of the furniture was removed and whether enough was left for the house to be habitable.  It sufficed for them to know that we would no longer be living there; no proof needed as I was in the habit of visiting the trésorerie annually to argue about bills and the people at the mairie would have known whether we were still living at our house.

We were never asked to pay any TH in the 3 years that we left the house empty before marketing and selling it.

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[quote user="PaulT"]When we completed on our house purchase, 26 January 2997, the Notaire automatically started to do an apportionment. Seemed a little petty for 26 days so said we would pay the whole year.[/quote]

PT, you do mean the TH and not the TF?

The TF is apportioned but the TH is paid by the owner on 1st January?

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[quote user="mint"]How observant of you to have picked up on that point…[/quote]

Well, I can't claim too much credit.  It's as Idun said, really  -  the rules of the game are printed on the back, and the very same rubric which specifies that the operative date is 1er janvier de l'année d'imposition, also specifies that burden falls upon lôgements meublés.

And the excellent removal man, actually made a point of saying, as he gave me the bill,  'Don't lose it  -  you may find it useful for claiming your exoneration from taxe d'habitation…' 

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The French authorities may consider it habitable if it has things such as a toilet sink  running water and an electricity supply, not necessarily much in the way of furniture...

L'ameublement du logement doit être suffisant pour en permettre

l'habitation : peu importe le degré de confort du mobilier, ou que vous

soyez propriétaire ou non des meubles.

http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dgi/public/particuliers.impot?pageId=part_taxe_habitation&typePage=cpr02&sfid=501&espId=1&communaute=1&impot=TH

So it is important not to leave anything behind..

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[quote user="NormanH"]The French authorities may consider it habitable if it has things such as a toilet sink  running water and an electricity supply, not necessarily much in the way of furniture...

L'ameublement du logement doit être suffisant pour en permettre

l'habitation : peu importe le degré de confort du mobilier, ou que vous

soyez propriétaire ou non des meubles.

http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dgi/public/particuliers.impot?pageId=part_taxe_habitation&typePage=cpr02&sfid=501&espId=1&communaute=1&impot=TH

So it is important not to leave anything behind..

[/quote]

What you 'd take the toilet AND the kitchen sink?[8-)]

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[quote user="mint"]What you 'd take the toilet AND the kitchen sink?[/quote]

Hahaha.  My sellers were charming people, and extremely obliging and punctilious in every way about the change-over.  Full lists of tradesmen who had intervened in the house;  copies of recent utility bills;  colour references of various paints that had been used;  a note of dentists, doctors, that they considered reputable and reliable;  a very amicable arrangement about a couple of bits of furniture which they wished to leave behind.  And so on and so forth.

I moved and what turned out to be, literally, the coldest day of an otherwise mild winter, the mercury nudging -10° whilst the removers brought things into the house through a variety of wide-open windows and doors.  And discovered late in the evening, with only rudimentary lighting, and no access to my tool-box, and in fairly bitter cold, that they had (à la française) removed the lavatory seats.  Mercifully this is a room that I only visit once a day, but I found it very bizarre and entertaining  -  given that it was the only unexpected element which went missing.  Everything else, including some very nice and useful things, was present and correct.

But as a friend remarked, they have only recently become accustomed to such sophistications, and doubtless grow to be very attached to them.

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The tax fonciere was apportioned by the notaire when the house was sold. This bill is for tax d'habitation. We paid the bill last year but I suppose forgot that it may be in arrears or about the rule of 1st Jan for this. The house was (just about) habitable until end of February.

Think we'll be good citizens and pay.. Thank you for all your advice though.
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'' they had (à la française) removed the lavatory seats''.

Not in France but in England, we moved in to a house in the SE from the midlands with a toddler and a new-born rather later in the day than expected, as there was a hold-up over keys. We discovered immediately that all light bulbs had been removed and we didn't even know where shops selling such things were sold. They had also removed all curtain rails and both toilet seats. Not the best things to find on moving in.

We later found that the central heating wasn't working right - they kept it on at full blast so that it didn't switch off, as then it didn't't switch on again. We then had to start looking for somebody to mend the centra k heating. I admit to wishing that the people who had bequethed such things to us had found equally bad luck in the house they moved to.
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  • 1 month later...
We sold back in Jan 2013, but have just had a TH bill in - via a lettre de relance which has put another 10% on - when the house is not even ours anymore! I paid the TH for 2013 at the end of that year. What do I do now? Does that mean our buyers (English) are not registered for TH?
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The notaire lets the authorities know, so I would probably get in touch with the notaire and asked if they did.

And I would send the bill back to the taxe people with a copy of the paperwork stating that you sold the property in Jan 2013 and that the bill for that year was paid.

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Probably being pedantic but perhaps what you need to make clear for the purpose of taxe d'hab is that you don't live in the house any more. As distinct from that you don't own it any more. Sometimes a person owns a house and lives in it, then sells it but continues to live in it so still pays tdh. Point being that it isn't automatically assumed that not owning the house any more = not being liable for tdh any more.
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[quote user="Foxie"]Probably being pedantic but perhaps what you need to make clear for the purpose of taxe d'hab is that you don't live in the house any more. As distinct from that you don't own it any more. Sometimes a person owns a house and lives in it, then sells it but continues to live in it so still pays tdh. Point being that it isn't automatically assumed that not owning the house any more = not being liable for tdh any more.[/quote]

I thought that the house owner pays the tdh.  If you live in a house that you don't own, surely you are only liable for the tdf?

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[quote user="mint"]I thought that the house owner pays the tdh.  If you live in a house that you don't own, surely you are only liable for the tdf?[/quote]

If you rent - as we did - your 'résidence principale' then you are only responsible for the taxe d'hab ... because you live there. The owner of the property is always liable to pay the taxe fonc.

Sue

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