In case you hadn't heard.

The tax office has introduced a new déclaration that has to be made people who own property in France
It's on your espace client on the impots site. If you go to the Mes biens immobiliers section (or whatever it's called, it's summat like that) you'll find a declaration to complete and submit. Basically it asks who lives in the property. If it's owner occupier and they already know that and there's been no change, you just confirm. That's my case, I just did mine and it's dead simple. If you're renting it out or lending it out for free there may be other questions .
If you're a second home owner and you don't have an espace client, I don't know what you're supposed to do.

I think the deadline is June so no panic but don't forget to do it!

Done easy peasy Thanks for the heads up

Me too. Thanks Eurotrash.

Its worth reading BE just for this kind of invaluable information. Many thanks Eurotrash. It seems that if you pay taxe foncier the property is automatically entered into the site so most people should have nothing to do. For those who don't speak French there is an English version

Thanks for the heads up - told my wife about it, she'd already heard about it. We have a couple of rental properties, but I would have thought the tax office should have enough info already given the taxes paid and declared. Hopefully they're not using it to introduce further taxes.

I guess it's all to do with the ongoing dematerialisation project. I don't think it's about introducing new taxes or processes, it's just about moving the existing processes online. The government website explains that the Mes biens immobiliers section will ultimately be used to manage everything to do with property (declarations for travaux, declaring a change of tenant etc), so I guess they want us to check upfront that we all agree on all of the data it has stored, before it all launches..(I'm wondering why it says my house has a cellar, when it doesn't. Can't decide whether I ought to bother asking them.)
https://www.service-public.fr/partic...ualites/A16161
Plus I suspect it might be designed to tighten up on people who are renting property below the radar, for instance if somebody has half a dozen different properties occupied by half a dozen different households, and claims not to be collecting rent from any of them, the fisc might be so impressed at their generosity that it will contact with that person and ask a few questions...

That does make sense, and in some cases it's not a bad thing, but I'm crazy about all the data collection going on (speaking in general terms); technology is going to be very controlling in all aspects of life...
Anyway, I won't go there. The changes with the diagnostic also make things very difficult... I can speak specifically for Paris - maybe 50% of properties are an F or G rating. You can't easily start applying exterior insulation to exterior buildings. You certainly can't start sticking solar panels and a pompe chaleur outside a historic flat, so all you can do is insulate some internal walls, which still destroys 19th century corniches and wooden panelling. It's causing a lot of problems in the rental market - some people are forced to sell because they can't afford the upgrades, and many places simply can't be rented out anymore, which doesn't help anyone particularly.

I daresay there will always be some slum landlords renting out inhabitable cellars for cash in hand, to some poor immigrant family.

Data collection doesn't bother me, strangely. 100% transparency is good because it saves me worrying Did I declare this correctly, should I have told them about that even though they didn't ask, etc. My very naîve attitude is, if they know everything then it's up to them what they take into account and what they don't and either way, it's off my conscience...

But I feel your pain on the diagnostics. My tiny 17th century cottage will wind up unsellable. I've been told by two installers that it's not possible to install a VMC because of the internal layout, and without a VMC you can't get any other work done so it will remain a thermal sieve.
Unfortunately we are in a period of transition and transition is always difficult. But I accept that it has to happen. I try to tell myself it's not unfair if you look at it that our generation is paying now for trop d'insouciance in the past.

It has puzzled me for some time now about what will happen to all the old appartements that are being rented out.
Around where we live, they have created complete new quarters which were previously industrial land or farmland.
Blocks of flats have sprung up all over the place because of the tax incentives of owning rental properties.
I do not know where they find all the people to buy or rent these flats.
Eventually, there will be only one winner between modern, well-insulated flats to rent and old properties that are becoming slums.
To be balanced about it, the same thing is happening in the UK when new mini townships are being built on previous green belt land.
These tend to be houses rather than flats.

Thanks for that, I've only noticed it mentioned here and on another expat forum, the French TV/Radio don't seem interested in sharing the news...
I've confirmed in my Espace Client that I live in my house alone, and hope that's sufficient. As mentioned above, all our data are already in the Fisc's base....
The Fisc really should mail every one to say that there's an important document to read and sign before a due date - they do for Avis d'Imposition, Crédit-d'Impôt, etc...., so why not for this one?

Thanks for putting up with all my grammatical errors, hopefully you were able to read between the lines of my mistakes!
VMC is related to the ventilation? Sorry to hear it's causing problems. What I love about France are its old historical buildings - gives the place so much character. Unfortunately many are already left to decay and rot, and I understand why, it's very expensive to fix them up - they're money pits. The generic new builds all look identical; it doesn't create much of a legacy to leave for a future generation, but I get that it's cheaper, more efficient etc. When I'm older I may well need something like that for myself.
Given the number of old properties in France, they really should have catered more for them. I believe they could have ironed out many of the teething problems before launching this.

Hi, first timer here. Can anyone advise how to create a personal space on impots.gov.fr from the UK?
We only brought our place in September last year so this is all new to me. TIA

​​​​​​⠀‹Well; in the past I think you had to have a fiscal number before you could set up a personal space, and normally the way you get your fiscal number as a non resident is when you receive your first property tax bills, which for you won't be until the end of this year.

It was always the case that if you wanted a fiscal number before it was notified to you as a matter of course, you could in theory request one from your local tax office. The thing with that is that some tax offices would issue one without a murmur, some would say No we don't do that, and some wouldn't respond at all. But maybe with this new requirements there will be a proper policy of giving people their number when they request it.

Whatever, I think that's what to do first. Write to your tax office, explain you've recently bought a property and haven't yet had any tax dealings, but you would like a tax number so that you can set up a personal space and meet your obligations. And maybe send them a copy of your French acte de vente, and a copy of your passport and your driving licence showing your UK address, for good measure, they do like their justiificatifs. You could even add a note at the end s, aying if you can't issue me a number, what would you like me to do about completing this declaration. Then wait and see what happens and take it from there. Tax offices in France are a completely different animal from HMRC, if that's who you're used to dealing with - the staff are usually friendly and helpful and they actually seem to like people to contact them when they have questions.

Hope that helps.

Oh and welcome to the forum

I never even noticed any
I'll go back now and look for them

Yes the VMC is for the ventilation. I think they said it's because the downstairs is just one big room with a whacking great fireplace at one end, and an open staircase to upstairs next to the fireplace. Something to do with there being no doors to isolate the heat source.

Great information. Thank you.
I write to our local public finance office, if I don't hear anything I'll pop in when we are over again in April.