Frenchie51

Hello,we have had a old farmhouse in Normandie for 25yrs which we have used for holidays,but we have now decided to retire early and make it our permanent home.So lots of questions;
As we have not yet reached retirement age I understand that we will have to purchase insurance to cover all our medical costs.We are both in good health so any idea what this would cost and which company to use.
I believe that each of us can put 15,000 into a liveret A which is tax free.After that what are taxation levels.We have quite a lot of investments.Anybody know a good account who is familiar with French laws.
What costs and how difficult is it to import a new car and a second-hand car into France.
With only a French address is it possible to have a UK bank account.
That's enough questions for now,thanks in advance for any help.
Terry.

jvc

Cannot answer in detail, and with every question but will pass on what I can. We only have a french address, no UK address and have a Lloyds TSB account which has never proven to be a problem. All our correspondance comes just to France.
HSBC offer a selection of Livret accounts. HSBC LDD is tax free also, although their is a limit. We both have Livret A accounts so can save quite a bit on that.
No problems importing a RHD car to France. However we needed to open a UK account first before the french one, but doesn't sound like that affects you.There are also offshore accounts, for eg Alliance and Leicester who offer accounts that may be of use to you.They are based on the IOM.
Just need a Certificate of conformaty for your vehicle which the Prefecteur would need to see on registering it onto French plates.There are many companies like Allianz who speak english (if necessary) and offer car insurance for both Left and Right hand drive vehicles. It is easy to do, just make sure you have all the paperwork with you before making a special journey to the Prefecture. Brand new LHD cars purchased in the UK to be exported within 3 months needs the tax paying in France. I wasn't sure whether yu have bought a LHD one tax free from the UK, or if it is just a few months old. We paid less tax on a new vehicle, as we paid the tax here on the vehicle at the Hotel d'Impot rather than in the UK when we bought the car. Hope this all makes sense!

EuroTrash

Hi Terry
Here's your first batch of answers - you'll get more, no doubt.
Yes you do need health insurance. There are loads of providers, you need to get quotes and see which give you the best rates.
You can also apply to join the French social security system when you've been here for 3 months, although you're not guaranteed to be accepted. That might work out cheaper but it would also affect your overall tax situation as regards CSG so might not be altogether clear cut, especially if you have a lot of unearned income. I don't know the rules on this but someone else will.
Taxation is per household. You can get a rough idea of the rates here
http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dgi...tstandard_6182
but that gives the individual allowances and a couple's allowance is less than 2 individual allowances. Again, someone will give you a better link I'm sure.
Importing cars is not a big deal, you just need the right paperwork and a little patience.
Most banks let you keep your account if you move to France but few if any will let you open a new account if you are non resident.
Hope that gets you started.
Normandie - good choice

Edit - oops it's not your first batch - jvc beat me to it !

aboris

Terry, from memory the limit on a Livret A account is now circa 23,000 and not 15,000 and both of you can hold a Livret A account.

Frenchie51

Thanks for the replies. JVC re cars,I'am looking at purchasing a new LHD Subaru STi.Price in the Uk is £29,000,but only available in RHD.Price in France 45,000 euro(about £38,500).So I thought to buy in the Netherlands or Belgium were prices are cheaper and import into France.What do you think?Not sure why prices are so high in France,tax I guess.

jvc

Hmmm..not sure about purchasing from another country but we were in the process of buying a new RHD car in the UK, then the job offer came up in France. We contacted the dealership as there was a considerable wait for the car and they put us in touch with a tax free garage in the UK. They then changed the order for a LHD on UK plates. We bought the car considerably cheaper, then paid the tax in France, and put it onto french plates with the prefecteur so made a decent saving. The only rule is that you export the car to France within 3 months of delivery. Although our other car we could not do in the same way as Nissan did not offer tax free within the UK. I know someone did buy a second hand car from Belgium as second hand cars here are so dear, but do not know the ins and outs of it. I assume they just needed to put it onto french plates. Sorry I cannot help much on that. Maybe email or pop in to your local prefecture office in your region. If you have a good contact for car insurance in France they should be able to help too with this question. If not PM me and can recommend someone we have used since moving to France. I will say though that if you need advice on anything like this go straight to the Prefecture or insuranc company, as we found very conflicting info on forums, and got far too confusing. Not disrespect Good luck.

bigglesworth

We also bought a new LHD in the UK. Under EU rules, manufacturers MUST supply either LHD or RHD at the equivalent local price, tax free with tax to be paid in member state. Although they may try very hard not to admit it. I wonder,seeing JVCs post, whether it is the Japanese manufacturers who are difficult as we could not get Toyota to quote for export at all.

When we did it (four years ago) you only had 6 weeks to export before the tax was due, so if you left it a bit late, you could theoretically wind up paying VAT in every country you passed through en route to your final destination. Of course you were and are entitled to claim it back. But that can be a very time consuming process.

You can do this in or from any member state of the EU, BUT you need to be very careful not to miss any target dates.

My memory may be playing me false, but I think the reason I did NOT buy in Germany (which was much cheaper at the time) was that I could not work out how to insure an untaxed car across several member states without being resident in any of them.

jvc

Yes it was Japanese! Having said that it was built in the UK and shipped to our local french dealership I am not sure who was worse though, the dealership in the UK who could not help, or the dealership here that once they had you money were total trash! Actually, I do...it was the dealership in France. Not worthy of a penny of my money

loy loy

We have our money (what little there is) in a high interest account, but it has to stay in for 8 years. The % goes up every, last year is about 9%

We use Axa for our health care. We are pretty fit so have just gone for hospital cover with our mutuelle. It's about 55e a month for 4. For a 100% cover with Axa with dental and eye care it's about 140e for 4. We don't go to the doctors enough to warrant the extra 1000e a year. My daughter is about to have orthodental work, but even if we got the 100% cover it will only pay out 250e for the first year for dental work so also seems futile. Full health care I wouldn't like to say.

I have an accountant who deals with my business. Whether they deal with investments I don't know but I give you the company name if you like. They are in Brive. Not that I have ever been to see them.

We changed our car over when we got here. I think you have to do it within 3 months. Cost about 300 - 500e in total I think. Thats with the new headlights etc.

We kept all our UK bank accounts, but we were not allowed to open a new account.

Tweedpipe

Just a brief comment on offshore accounts that were mentioned above.
For sure there may be some that meet your needs perfectly - offering preferential interest rates etc. However, don't forget that interest from these accounts (indeed any bank accounts - wherever held) must be declared on your French annual tax return.

TinaBee

If you have UK ISAs you need to be aware that they are taxable in France. There are other tax efficient savings/investment vehicles in France - one to look at is the Assurance Vie (it doesn't really mean life insurance). These allow a certain amount of tax-free withdrawals each year after you have held the investment for 8 years, but you can withdraw at any time within the first 8 years. These investments also have advantages for inheritance planning.

cyrian

Not sure if this applies but if you take a company or personal pension and take the 25% tax-free cash then this is likely to be taxed in France.
The French tax year is in arrears and therefore the tax due for income in 2014 will be due to be declared in 2015.

Tweedpipe

The above is a very valid comment/mention.
The Assurance Vie - which seems to be rarely mentioned here - was explained to us a few years ago by an adviser, and is a very tax efficient way of investing sums of money here. There are no shortages of companies offering these, so the best bet is to get a quote from several, and carefully check out the documentation given.
We found an excellent company with the help of one of the investment magazine 'best of' supplements. We took out two identical policies under our separate names.
Some of the benefits we have seen are:
Regular tax efficient monthly income (with no loss of the original sum invested).
No max limit on investment, and the assets held virtually grow tax free i.e. do not incur income/capital gains tax or social charges.
If one needs access to the capital, withdrawals are possible albeit with slight penalties within the 8 year term. After 8 years the sum is tax free. This is just one of the reasons we opted for two identical policies - belt & braces as it were.

Frenchie51

Many thanks to all concerned for all the info. JVC I will PM you re cars.We have a lot of investment and reading all the replies I think we will need expert advice.If anyone has a company they can recommend I would be most grateful.

jvc

We use a financial advisor in Paris who is excellent, but of course she may charge you for her services. She does out tax each year too, and does tax for a considerable number of employees at our work.