Regime change - again!

[Evianers]

If one did not change to CU at the time of purchase in France, and if one is not yet resident there, it is necessary to change at the Notaire's BEFORE coming to live in France, or can it be done after, at any time. What are the advantages/disadvantages please?

[Will]

My understanding is that it can be done at any time, though it is easier if you can get the regime right during the house buying process.

[Tourangelle]

I have heard that it is much cheaper to change your regime at the time of purchase rather than before or after in terms of notaire fee. 

Jane

[Evianers]

Thanks Will and Jane, but this is just the point: we have already purchased 18 months ago, and wonder what is best to do now, before we come to live in France. We did not know at the time of purchase it was better to change to CU. Obviously it is now too late "at the time of purchase". Would appreciate further comments. TIA

[Eleanor REleanor R<br>www.chicfinance.com<br>06 15 16 10 04]

Hello,

You can change the regime at any time. It is a little more costly if you do it after the purchase.

If the notary feels that you are changing in order to disinherit your reserved hiers then it may have to go before a judge which can take longer.

Given the implications of a CU regime, it would perhaps be an idea to have it limited to property in France (reduit aux biens acquit en France).

[Frenchy]

[quote]Hello,You can change the regime at any time. It is a little more costly if you do it after the purchase.If the notary feels that you are changing in order to disinherit your reserved hiers then it ma...[/quote]

Hi EleanorR, I tried to post a quote from your post, still can't figure out how to do this.

Can you please explain what you mean in regards to you stating that you would recommend "reduit aux biens acquit en France" because of the implications of the CU.  I am still not clear how this changes the inheritance of one spouse from the other.

[Eleanor REleanor R<br>www.chicfinance.com<br>06 15 16 10 04]

Hi!

The Regime CU means that anything that either spouse had before the marriage or anything that they will have after the marriage belongs to both of you fully.

This includes obviously all the positive nice things, but also any debts hidden or otherwise. It also means that any inheritance from Great Aunt Maud, any redundancy money, any alimony or divorce settlement income belongs to both of you. Divorcing can then be a very interesting battle.

If you reduce the CU to French property, then everything else that you have would be treated outside of the CU as per your pervious regime and the French property neatly passes from one to the other.

Please note that I am not a legal advisor or a solicitor but come across this from many different angles (property purchase, divorce, probate battles, etc) on a daily basis. You should really take good and proper legal advice from either an English speaking notary who is accustomed to foreign marriage regimes or one of the very few decent, honest and capable French Law solicitors in the UK.

[Frenchy]

Thank you very much EleanorR for your response. It is very helpful although a bit late for us but hopefully others will take note. As for my bit of advise from our experience and your comments I would strongly recommend using An English speaking Notaire and not bother with the UK based Solicitors that say they specialise in French property.  I am not sure how we would go about having this clause added to our CU after the fact but I am going to try and look into it.  Thank you again.