confused over Tontine

[helene]

my partner and I are not married but will be jointly buying a property... does anyone know what additional paperwork we need the noatire

so far all i can find is the Tontine, which means if one of us dies the other gets the property without any additional people being entitled to a share, however my research shows the surviving owner may pay 60% inheritance tax?

thx

[darnsarf]

We were in the same situation when we bought our place and went with the 'en tontine' approach. It's all a bit complicated though and depends a great deal on the 'likely permanancy' of your relationship (who can be sure of that?!) and any children. We took advice from a UK law firm specialising in French property rather than going ahead with a Notaire-only. It costs a lot more but the peace of mind is probably worth it. I'd recommend you do the same because otherwise it could get a bit difficult trying to undo the tontine and/or being clear about the tax issues on death of one partner.

[Pickles]

[quote user="helene"]my partner and I are not married but will be jointly buying a property...

 so far all i can find is the Tontine, which means if one of us dies the other gets the property without any additional people being entitled to a share, however my research shows the surviving owner may pay 60% inheritance tax?

thx[/quote]

Basically, you are correct. The tontine may be able to get round the succession law, but it will NOT get you around the French inheritance tax laws. For transfers between people whoc are not related by blood or marriage, then the tax-free limit in France is low (around 5K€) and above that the amount of inheritance tax chargeable rapidly rises to 60%. I suspect that if you are not going to be resident in France, you could invoke the Hague convention to get a UK will to apply to your French property, but that would again result in the same inheritance tax bill in France.

If you are not going to be French resident,  it may be useful to investigate setting up and using a UK company to make the purchase: in this case what happens on the death of the first is that company shares situated outside of France are transferred, and in theory there is no change in ownership in France. Whether there would be UK IHT payable would depend on the value of the total estate. You must seek competent legal advice if you choose to pursue this route and of course there are ongoing cost implications associated with running a company.

Pickles