Renting property and keeping my UK car

[jhilton]

I intend to move over to France shortly and would like advice on two key areas, can i continue to rent a property rather than buy and if i do are there any disadvantages to this,ie if i am renting for more than 6 months how does this affect other issues that i would have faced if i should buy a property, ie tax, health, law, ect.

Also can anyone give me advice in respect of my uk registered car, in view of the above can i continue to leave my car as is but just get it serviced in France, i have a uk insurance policy that allows me cover on frequent trips to France and with hoping to rent long term it is important to allow myself a degree of flexability.

Can you help please?

[Baz]

"Also can anyone give me advice in respect of my uk registered car, in view of the above can i continue to leave my car as is but just get it serviced in France, i have a uk insurance policy that allows me cover on frequent trips to France and with hoping to rent long term it is important to allow myself a degree of flexability."

Firstly, welcome to the forum. I will respond to your second question. Most UK insurance companies will cover your car for short trips with maximum of between 30-90 days. As you state you will be renting for more than 6 months, so I suggest you get cover in France for your UK registered car. The other problem you will encounter if you remain registered in the UK is maintaining your UK road Tax and MOT if applicable so registering it in France should be considered and as a bonus there is no road tax.

Much of the above has been discussed in detail and a search in the Motoring section will give far more details.

Baz

[Ron Avery]

As far as I am know,  if you live here for more than 180 days in any calendar year, that makes you a resident for income tax purposes, whether you own or rent a property matters not, many French rent their houses and flats.  It would also affect your entitlement to health care as the European Health card may not be valid after this period has elapsed and you might not get reimbursed by the UK for any costs incurred and hopspitilisation can be very expensive.  What health cover you will need will depend on what you do while you are here.

[Dave&Olive]

hi

    

Also can anyone give me advice in respect of my uk registered car, in view of the above can i continue to leave my car as is but just get it serviced in France, i have a uk insurance policy that allows me cover on frequent trips to France and with hoping to rent long term it is important to allow myself a degree of flexability.

Can you help please

when you sell or move from your house in the uk be it to another in the uk or not you will have to inform your insurance company.

when you tell em it`s xxxxxx or xxxxxx they will say you are not insured, this 60day thing does not exist when you do not have a uk address

                dave

[Athene]

[quote]hi Also can anyone give me advice in respect of my uk registered car, in view of the above can i continue to leave my car as is but just get it serviced in France, i have a uk insurance poli...[/quote]

Saga will cover you for unlimited milage in Europe. Yes it is more expensive but you will have to keep going back to the Uk with other cheaper,standard policies!

Also for health purposes, you may need to go back and forwards every three months to maintain your UK status. I really do not understand why this should have to be as surely we are all Europeans and should be able to live wherever within the confines of Europe, provided we do pay our taxes somewhere and can prove we do! 

If you do not want to do this to-ing and fro-ing, then you must do as advised here and become a resident in France.

[Athene]

[quote]hi Also can anyone give me advice in respect of my uk registered car, in view of the above can i continue to leave my car as is but just get it serviced in France, i have a uk insurance poli...[/quote]

Saga will cover you for unlimited milage in Europe. Yes it is more expensive but you will have to keep going back to the Uk with other cheaper,standard policies!

Also for health purposes, you may need to go back and forwards every three months to maintain your UK status. I really do not understand why this should have to be as surely we are all Europeans and should be able to live wherever within the confines of Europe, provided we do pay our taxes somewhere and can prove we do! 

If you do not want to do this to-ing and fro-ing, then you must do as advised here and become a resident in France.

[Ron Avery]

SAGA will not cover you for unlimited anything if you are a French resident,  I thought moving to France meant going to live there , not flitting back to the UK every now and again to "maintain" UK status

AND if you think going back to the UK every three months avoids that Athene, you are wrong

Just for clarification, it is not >180 days continuously living in France that gives you french resident status for tax and health purposes, it is being here for > 180 days in a calendar year.  So going back to the UK to every three months for a couple of days would not maintain your UK status.  I really do not see the importance of this, you  may actually find that health care costs in France are cheaper than the UK and the service better, depends on your circumstances of course.

[Athene]

[quote]SAGA will not cover you for unlimited anything if you are a French resident, I thought moving to France meant going to live there , not flitting back to the UK every now and again to "maintain" UK st...[/quote]

Just for clarification, it is not >180 days continuously living in France that gives you french resident status for tax and health purposes, it is being here for > 180 days in a calendar year.  So going back to the UK to every three months for a couple of days would not maintain your UK status. 

I am not sure what you mean by this Ron? Do I understand that if one stayed 179 days and then went back, you could maintain your UK status?

With my old Norwich Union Policy, we were only allowed to be away from the UK for 90 day periods, with Saga you are allowed 'unlimited' stay overs in France. So I guess that would cover the 179 days stay over.

Yes I would agree that the standard of hospital care in France as compared to the shabby third world hospitals in the UK is a huge reason to be resident in France. I say this with authority as my daughter is right now in a London hospital and I wish she was in a French one! Last year, we took our French neighbour daily to visit her husband and the hospital was not new but the standards of care and hygene were both very high.

In my previous letter I was trying to be helpful, I am sorry if I confused the issue.

[Ron Avery]

No criticism intended Athene it was just that your remedy to keep UK tax status or more to the point avoid French tax staus would not work.  To answer your question " Do I understand that if one stayed 179 days and then went back, you could maintain your UK status?"  The answer is YES, for accuracy the cut off figure is 183 days, so if you are in France 183 days you are a resident for tax purposes, the 183 days do not have to be continuous.  If you are here for less than 183 days and do not receive an income from French property or business in France, you have no tax liabilty here.

[Ron Avery]

No criticism intended Achene it was just that your remedy to keep UK tax status or more to the point avoid French tax status would not work. 

Also the point I was making was that SAGA would not insure you at all if you were a French resident

 To answer your question " Do I understand that if one stayed 179 days and then went back, you could maintain your UK status?"  The answer is YES, for accuracy the cut off figure is 183 days, so if you are in France 183 days you are a resident for tax purposes, the 183 days do not have to be continuous.  If you are here for less than 183 days and do not receive an income from French property or business in France, you have no tax liability here.

[Athene]

[quote]No criticism intended Achene it was just that your remedy to keep UK tax status or more to the point avoid French tax status would not work. Also the point I was making was that SAGA would not insur...[/quote]

We are like so many Brits that have property in France and family in the UK. We think we would like to live in France all the time but you would ever know how well it would work out until you make that leap and actually become a French resident! No amount of long holidays could ever be the same! This would mean we would fully retire and the rent from the UK house would top up on the pensions. However, if, like at the moment, a family crisis occurs with someone in hospital, we would want to shoot back and be with them. Now if the UK house was rented out, we would have all the hastle of finding another to rent and as we have two, large cats that might prove difficult! Also reading this site, people are saying that if you are in France for over 3 months, the cats have to have French passports and that means they have to have different rabies injections as the French require one injection each year and it is every two years for their UK passports. I am going to talk to the English vet about this today, as the French vet say she thinks we are OK to stay in France as long as we like with the English cat passports! Nothing is straight forward!

 So at the moment, with all that is going on, we have shelved everything and we will decide our future later on!