mint Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 we are having to structure our joint ownership of our french property and we know that our best course of action is to change our french matrimonial regime.i believe the french term for this process is "regime de communaute universelle avec clause d'attribution integrale de la communaute au conjoint survivant"has anyone done this themselves and please could you say how much it costs to doalso, does anyone know of an english-speaking notaire in the bordeaux, cognac, perigeaux area whom we can engage to do this for usmany thanks indeed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert the InfoGipsy Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 If I remember rightly it cost us 180 euro. It was easy for us because we have a livret de famille (sort of family log book) because my wife is French and that held most of the info the notaire needed. However, we had to send my birth certificate,Can't help with a notaire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted August 9, 2006 Author Share Posted August 9, 2006 albertthanks for your reply. i shall now be ready with all info that the notaire might possibly need. and it doesn't seem too expensive or onerous so we'll do the change in the very near futuretherese Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyC Posted August 9, 2006 Share Posted August 9, 2006 We used a really good notaire who is in Mussidan (between Bordeaux and Perigeux) and who spoke excellent English. He was very efficient and helpful and had an English speaking assistant who actually used email. Pm me if you would like his details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 The term you quote is one of several regimes recognised by the French, admittedly the one that seems best for most British people. You should seek advice as to whether it will be the right regime for you before committing yourself to it. Also, the change is not possible or not beneficial for everybody. Cost depends on whether you do it before or after signing the Acte de Vente for your house, and seems to vary considerably between notaires. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted August 10, 2006 Author Share Posted August 10, 2006 willmany thanks indeed for your comments. from my limited research of the subject, i think it probably is right for us both as my husband and i have been married before and have children from our previous marriages though not from our own marriage.i do appreciate the time and trouble you have takenall the besttherese (sweet 17) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hastobe Posted August 10, 2006 Share Posted August 10, 2006 We used a notaire in St Astier who spoke good English and was excellent - he charged (I think!) 300 euroPM me if you want details.Kathie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted August 11, 2006 Share Posted August 11, 2006 [quote user="sweet 17"] ...from my limited research of the subject, i think it probably is right for us both as my husband and i have been married before and have children from our previous marriages though not from our own marriage.[/quote]Therese - those are exactly the reasons why we were told (by a notaire) that a CU would not be right for us. Just shows how advice from supposedly reliable sources can be so variable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goose Posted August 11, 2006 Share Posted August 11, 2006 This problem arises from the use of a differing default situation.The French default is non-CU whilst the UK default is, effectively, CU. I had heard that there was a test case going through the European courts that basically said that a standard EU marriage should be recognised in a host country as its home equivalent and NOT as the host countries default. In other words, UK marriages should be recognised in France as CU because thats the intention in UK law. Anybody know what became of that?At least you guys are lucky that your notaire recognises this problem. Ours initially denied there was such a thing as CU until I showed him the french legal papers that I downloaded (thanks to somebody pasting the link on this forum yonks ago). He then subsequently refused to process our change without a letter from our Marie in England giving him dispensation. We tried repeatedly telling him we don't have anything quite like a French Marie and our Mayor might sound a similar word but doesn't have anything to do with marriages but we were absolutely up against gallic pigheadedness. According to our immobilier he's being a pain in the harris to everybody and its not just Les Anglais that get messed about. Still, if he doesn't want our business we'll find somebody that does..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted August 11, 2006 Author Share Posted August 11, 2006 dear goosei had a giggle at your message. talk about cultural differences! now that i have heard about your experience, i should be very careful as to which notaire i appoint to do this for uswhat would be the ultimate best thing would be if the cu matter as you describe it is then extended to wills and inheritance but i don't for one moment think that that would ever bei am looking at the implications of just keeping the french property (an immovable object) french as it were and keeping the rest of our assets elsewhere. haven't got as far as finding out about tax and other implications. fortunately, the french property does not constitute anything like the bulk of our assetswhen i do find out more about this, i will post the info on the forum. alternately if there are folks out there who are experts in french and uk inheritance tax, please don't keep all that useful knowledge to yourselves, will you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyh4 Posted August 11, 2006 Share Posted August 11, 2006 I was under the impression that a notaire would only grant CU in circumstances such as this if he received written agreement from all heirs (ie the children from the former marriages, plus any from a current marriage) since the CU effectively disinherits them or at least defers inheritance. This of course may be yet another regional view of the complex French laws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted August 11, 2006 Author Share Posted August 11, 2006 thank you so much for your view of this. it's not what i wanted to hear as one of the "children", being autistic, will be unable to give his "consent" but at least i am now forewarned as to what might be requestedcomplexity is one thing but being beyond the commonsense view of "reasonable" beggars beliefthanks anyway and i hope all affected will take note! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goose Posted August 11, 2006 Share Posted August 11, 2006 Hmm, disinheriting the kids is a different issue and almost imposible in France I'm told. We don't have children so the CU was solely to mimic the situation we have in the UK where you own a house as "tenants in common" and therefore when one of you dies - as is inevitable - the other automatically gains the house without it going through the estate and therefore being subject to inheritance tax. In France the house normally passes to the children and they let mama carry on living in it so it doesn't catch them out as much as us. I don't know that a CU is neccessarily the best situation for people with kids, especially with one who is autistic. I'd be taking very careful legal advice if I were you.Our problems only arose because we thought the notaire was doing our "CU" and then on the day of exchange he simply said "no" and we were left sitting there with a wad of money opposite the couple selling the house and an intransigent notaire. The entente was a little less cordiale for a few minutes but we were stuffed and he knew it. Barsteward! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiona Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 Hi All,My boyfriend and I have just spent about 6 hours at our Notairediscussing the best course of action in just such asituation. My boyfriend has kids from a previous marriageand I have none. We bought our house whilst unmarried andonly found out about such problems through this website so thanks toall the questions. What we have done is to make a contractof marriage (cannot remember the name right now) which basically makesanything that we buy together common to the marriage. (Basically disinheriting the kids). The only claim that thekids might have is on the amount of the mortage we have alreadypaid. So, without getting too complicated, imagine we havealready paid 10,000 Euros of our mortgage before we get married thechildren can then claim a percentage of that amount since the house didnot yet belong to the marriage. Therefore, we have to getmarried as quick as possible - just getting all the paperwork togethernow.However, we did get one surprise - the price!! Since thehouse will be passed from one partner to the other with no inheritencetax you have to pay a tax on the amount of the mortgage you havealready paid. I don't know the percentage but we only haveour house since October last year and it cost us 1.300€ to make themarriage contract. We live in Alsace and so we have adifferent regime, in other parts of France you have to add another2.000€ (roughly) to this price. If you are prepared forthis its not a huge amount of money but we had no idea it would costanything like that.Once you are married the children have NO claim on the housewhatsoever. We did not need permission from the kids to dothis because we bought the house 50/50. If my boyfriend hadput more deposit than me or he paid more mortgage than me then it wouldhave been more complicated apparently!We should get our papers soon and I'll be able to give you the exact name of the contract!Hope everything works out for you. Other tip if you aregetting married and you pay tax in France then do it in the middle ofthe year - you save more tax! And beware that the documentsyou need from the British embassy cost 64€ each too!What a hassle!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 Also, after 1 January next, French inheritance law is changing. Although the basic principle remains (i.e. you cannot disinherit children) there are a number of important alterations to the current situation, including the possiblity to provide for stepchildren without having to legally adopt them. This is not automatic, and needs to be set up in the right way, so do see a notaire or other qualified professional about it. Not all notaires seem to be aware of the change, surprisingly, so refer them to the www.notaires.fr web site (where there is a summary, in French) if they don't seem to know what you are talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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