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Monthly RIB payment for property tax wrong!!


f1steveuk

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I'm not due back in France untill next week, but I'd like to get a handle on this before we set off!!  Checking my bank statements our monthly payments for property tax, TF and TH have been the same as always (aprrox' 117 and 156 euros), until this month, when one of them suddenly became 486 Euros!!! Credit Agricole just paid up, and obviously don't know why it has changed, but nor did it raise a flag or did they tell me.  Anybody  else had this this month or before, any clue as to why they might have done this? No payments have been missed so I am at a loss!!

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We had the same problem ?last year and found that it was because our income had gone up above a certain level.

They look at your tax return.

Otherwise it might be something to do with it not being your permanent residence?

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Well it's not income, because we don't earn a living in France, so no tax forms.

We agreed when we first moved to France with our local office to pay the full rate as even though we return to the UK to work, France is the only property we have, so not a maision secondaire or holiday home, and that has never been a problem. As we pay the full whack, why would one month have an extra 300+ Euros added? Especilly as there has been no written warning of it eiher!!

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Ask them, they will know, others can only speculate.

 

AFAIK the direct debit payments are set up before the bill has been issued based on last years bill, any adjustments are made on the final payment but in that case it would be easy to just check your bill to see if the amount paid including the extra is correct.

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"We agreed when we first moved to France with our local office to pay the full rate as even though we return to the UK to work, France is the only property we have, so not a maision secondaire or holiday home,"

I think there may be some confusion here.

For a property in France to be classed as your résidence principale, you need to be a French taxpayer and the address of that property needs to be the address you put on your tax return.

For your résidence principale, you may be entitled to a reduction or exoneration, either due to age or to low income.

Any other property is officially a maison secondaire and there are no reductions on taxe d'habitation for a maison secondaire, it is always charged at the full rate.

It doesn't follow that because it's the only property you own it's your residence principale - a lot of French people live in a rented flat in a town and own a holiday home in the country, and the rented flat in town is their residence principale because that's where they live and work - but if in fact you do live there most of the time and consider yourself French resident, you should be submitting tax returns in France.

This is probably nothing to do with the sudden increase, but seemed to need clarifying?

Is it possible that the extra charge could be the rubbish collection? Some communes do collect this annually as a separate payment, and the amount sounds about right. But if that's the case you would have had an invoice for it.
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Just want to back up ET's explanation of résidence secondaire.  Résidence principale is where you live and are fiscally resident.

Your French house may be the only property you own but that doesn't make it your résidence principale unless you live there for large parts of the year and your income and other revenues are taxed in France.

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I'm more than aware of the technical reasoning behind principale and secondaire, as it has an impact on on insurance policies and premiums. We chose to pay the full rate, because we wanted to show we aren't just sunning ourselves when we felt like it, our marie, being very grateful of our gesture to pay the full whack regardless. So no need to clarify, but thanks!

Well as March isn't the last payment, can't be that. and all our payments were pre-scheduled. Never mind, it will have to wait until next week, and I can pop into the office ans ask!!

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"We chose to pay the full rate, because we wanted to show we aren't just sunning ourselves when we felt like it, our marie, being very grateful of our gesture to pay the full whack regardless."

Actually the point I was trying to clarify is that you don't have the choice, French law is quite clear on property tax liability and it doesn't give options to the owner or discretion to the commune. The law obliges every owner/occupier of a maison secondaire to pay full whack, regardless of whether they sun themselves there 1 day a year and leave it empty for the other 364 days or whether they spend 180 days a year there, and regardless of whether they want to pay or whether they don't. So I'm not sure what Marie has to be grateful for or what your gesture was. Maybe Marie has a sense of humour :-) but it would be interesting to see what reaction you get if you go along and say you changed your mind and you don't want to pay full whack any more.

https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F42

"La taxe est due même si vous n'occupez pas le logement ou si vous y faites de brefs séjours."

My bet is still on rubbish disposal tax. A lot of communes that used to collect a refuse tax in with the property taxes have now separated it off and are billing it separately as a redevance rather than a tax, to be paid as a one-off.
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Both in our previous house in 17 and our present one in 24, it was the Trésor Public that dealt with the level of the TF and TH.

As it happened, we had dégrèvements in both houses.  The taxes went very high in the previous house but they seem to be pretty steady in the present one.  So, I guess that they CAN increase substantially.

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