TVA at 5.5% - Official Confirmation

[Nearly Retired (I am now)]

A plumber who is about to install a shower room for us is very firm in his view that TVA for work to our 200+ year old house is at the normal 19.6% rate. He says the lower rate does not apply to a maison secondaire. The guys who fixed the boiler last year were happy enough to charge 5.5% with a signed attestation.

I am pretty sure the 5.5% rate applies to a new shower room in my case - does anyone know an authorative piece on this  - preferably in french? I want to show him.

Also, the roofers say 5.5% TVA applies to the main house only and it's 19.6% TVA for the (non-attached) barns and sheds.

Confirmation anyone?

 

[Dick Smith]

My understanding is that the lower rate applies (even to maisons secondaires) so long as you have owned it for two years or more - we have had to attest to this with companies.

[Blanche Neige]

Dick Smith wrote

"My understanding is that the lower rate applies (even to maisons secondaires) so long as you have owned it for two years or more - we have had to attest to this with companies."

 

No Dick

5,5% TVA applies to houses over two years old. It doesn't matter whether it is a maison secondaire or how long you have owned it.

Conversion work on barns etc, that have not previously been dwellings may not qualify and I am sure someone in the trade willl be able to give a good reply.

There was a lot of talk about this on here not long ago.

[Dick Smith]

Then why did I have to sign an attestation that I had owned the house for 2 years before I got the lower TVA rate?

And I didn't say barns, I said maisons secondaires.

[Blanche Neige]

I am pretty sure the 5.5% rate applies to a new shower room in my case - does anyone know an authorative piece on this  - preferably in french? I want to show him.

Is your shower room a newly built add on extension? If this is the case it may well not qualify for the 5,5% TVA rate.

If it is inside your 200 yr old house then I would think it would qualify? Ours did!

Hopefully one of our forum members who are in the trade will post on this before long.

Bon courage

[Blanche Neige]

Then why did I have to sign an attestation that I had owned the house for 2 years before I got the lower TVA rate?

 

Dick,  the attestation you signed probably said that you are the owner and that the property is over 2 years old. I'm sorry I don't have one here to look at.

 

This 5,5% was passed and came in just as we bought our house. The house is old, maison secondaire and all work that we had done within that year was at 5,5%. Also most of the work that we have had done recently.

[Blanche Neige]

"And I didn't say barns, I said maisons secondaires".

 

Dick it was the original poster "nearly retired" who queried the TVA rate on barns.

[Dick Smith]

Yes, I know, that's why I was careful in what I wrote. The attestation (which was a simple photocopied document from a plumber) definitely referred to my owning the property for 2 years - which I suppose entails it having been built for 2 years - but isn't exactly the same thing. He used it to justify charging me the lower rate, presumably when he made his tax returns.

[Nearly Retired (I am now)]

"There was a lot of talk about this on here not long ago."  Thanks Blanche Neige - I was sure I'd seen some discussion somewhere but couldn't find it. Now I know I didn't imagine it.

The proposed shower room is internal at the end of a corridor (what a waste of space some of these long dark corridors can be!)

Hopefully someone will be along in a minute with the definitive answers.

 

 

 

[Dick Smith]

Have you lived there 2 years? Has it been built 2 years? Is it the main house?

It would seem that if the answer to all of those is yes, you are OK.

Another route I have found useful is to ask in the local quincaillerie. Our bloke is very helpful (his wife was born in the adjacent hameau to ours).

[Blanche Neige]

"The proposed shower room is internal at the end of a corridor (what a waste of space some of these long dark corridors can be!)"

 

Reply to "Nearly Retired"

We had the same thing and had a new shower room made this year at 5,5% so hopefully your shower room will qualify.

It doesn't matter if you have only just bought your house it is the age of the house that counts.

[Gardian]

[quote user="Blanche Neige"]

It doesn't matter if you have only just bought your house it is the age of the house that counts.

[/quote]

Correct.

[Nearly Retired (I am now)]

Thanks all for the OPINIONS which follow my thinking - I just don't think pointing my french plumber at these pages will be quite enough to change his mind.

Is there some piece of legislation, some official words I can find (in french) to convince the chap - and maybe the roofers too. If I'm not careful I could be unneccesarily giving the government the thick end of €2500.

 

 

[BJSLIV]

If you follow these instructions....

le portail des impôts : www.impots.gouv.fr ,  puis la rubrique : Particuliers       puis la rubrique Vos préoccupations      puis la rubrique Logement.

Follow the trail it does work!

Then down the page to

Taux de TVA réduit pour les travaux réalisés dans les logements

You will find more info about the subject than anyone could want.

In essence

It doesn't have to be your main house, but it has to be a residential property.

You don't have to have owned it for any set time, but it does have to have been a residetial property for more than two years.

Not relevant here, but a big catch is that if you are refurbing more than 2/3rds of the property then  the work is all at standard rate, as someone in "Another Place" has retrospectively discovered to their cost (55,000 Euros from memory)

[Catalpa]

Reply to: anyone that cares, really...

It is the age of the house that is relevant to qualifying for the lower rate. Which isn't to say some workmen might not have misunderstood and think it relates to ownership but all the attestations we've signed (and there have been rather a lot) relate to the house being older than 2 years.

It's my understanding that houses (ie, previously legally inhabited by people!) get the 5.5%. Barns, regardless of age or type of previous non-human occupation, do not.

Rather than argue that you are due the lower rate, you could ask your plumber to prove to you with paperwork why you do not qualify.

[Chancer]

I somehow don't think that the plumber will see it as his responsibility to prove to you that he is correct and to provide you with documentation.

He is probably more worried about having to stump up the difference his-self sometime in the future.

[Coco]

Over the last 7 years we've signed a lot of attestations as well and they have always referred to the age of the property - in fact one we signed after we had owned the house for just one week.

It also gets quite technical about exactly WHAT you are doing.  For example, if you replace a wooden floor with a wooden floor you can get it done at 5.5% but if you replace it with a concrete one you can't.  We have also been unable to get a lot of the work in our barn extension done on 5.5% because it was not previously a habitation.  However, the roofer was able to do his work at the lower rate because the barn is integral with the house and therefore he was able to say that he was renovating the existing roof.  Complicated or what?

[Gardian]

[quote user="Nearly Retired"]

Thanks all for the OPINIONS which follow my thinking - I just don't think pointing my french plumber at these pages will be quite enough to change his mind.

[/quote]

Then perhaps next time you need some guidance or advice that will meet your exacting requirements, you either pay a (French) lawyer to get that information, or do the research yourself.

The responses to questions on here are (almost) always well-intentioned and (almost) always well-informed: as you can see from the above, it sometimes takes a few posts to fine-tune the detail. That's the way of the thing.

Dismissing them in CAPS is, in my opinion, less than charitable to those who took the time and trouble to read and respond at some length to your problem.  

[Blanche Neige]

Some excellent answers on here from many of us who have worked with or been on the receiving end of  the 5,5% TVA system.

To refer to the original question:

"A plumber who is about to install a shower room for us is very firm in his view that TVA for work to our 200+ year old house is at the normal 19.6% rate"

Is he registered for plumbing work?

"He says the lower rate does not apply to a maison secondaire."

Then he is wrong.

[P]

I have seen some adverts for replacement double glazing. It asks 'why not let us install' and it will only be marginally dearer because on a supply only it is 19.6% TVA and supply and fit 5.5% TVA.

So it would seem that 5.5% applies

Paul

[BJSLIV]

Similar offers for "as good as free" fitting due to the lower rate of VAT are often seen for fitted wardrobes and kitchens.

Virtually any repair or alteration to a house that has existed for more than two years qualifies. I'm surprised that someone earlier  had to pay full rate for changing from a wood to concrete floor. The main exemption is for replacement of electrical goods such as washing machines in a built in kitchen which will always be at 19.6%.

It gets more complicated with conversions and extensions which will normally be at full rate.

Garden and pool works will also be at full rate.

All the ins and outs are in the links I gave earlier which gives a more complete rundown than I have ever seen anywhere .

 

 

[Nearly Retired (I am now)]

Thanks and especially a big thanks to BJSLIV - the links look just the business. Now to navigate them, understand and convey the message.

 

 

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Nearly Retired"]

Thanks and especially a big thanks to BJSLIV - the links look just the business. Now to navigate them, understand and convey the message.

[/quote]

The actual arbiter in these matters is the Hotel des Impots. The solution is to describe the work to them, they will tell you what the rate is and you can ask for a letter confiming that. Give this to your plumber as he can use it if the impots complain later. Simple really.

 

[Val_2]

Well we would be doing the work at 5,5%TVA as long as it meets the criteria of being in a habitation more than two years old, is NOT an extension to an existing building or change of use needing a PdeC and that the property has been lived in. When I have an enquiry about the correct rate, I get it in writing from the TVA office themselves to protect us in case of future checks, plus we always get the attestations signed by the clients too. If your plumber is not registered to charge TVA then he cannot charge the lower rate and you lose out.