Lindylou36

We live in the UK and in October 2017 we made a quick trip across to France so complete the sale of our property. The Notaire duly took the fees and tax deductions (including capital gains and social charges), and we assumed the receipt was included with other paperwork given to us in an envelope. However, no tax receipt was received.

Back in the UK, we have made several attempts to contact the Notaire to obtain a tax receipt, but we never receive a response. We are now worried that we are unable to provide this information to the HMRC in the UK. We're interested to know if anyone else has experienced similar problems, and the best way forward to resolve this.

EuroTrash

Have you tried phoning, are you saying they never pick the phone up? Seems odd...

Lindylou36

Hi EuroTrash, thanks for your reply. Yes, we have tried phoning, but can't get past the French speaking receptionist. We are generally emailing them (and know they are receiving the emails as we request delivered and read receipts), and posting letters to them. We have also contacted our immobiliser to see if can advise us what to do, but she doesn't respond either!

dmu

Hi, if the receptionist can't pass you the Clerc de Notaire who usually supervises all the paperwork, I'd write snailmail, in French, by Registered Letter with Receipt. If you need help drafting the letter, give us a shout and some one will oblige!

EuroTrash

As DMU implies, it sounds as if it may be a language issue (are you using Googletranslate or some such tool?) and they may not have properly understood what you are asking, so they simply don't know how to answer. I would suggest your first step, if you haven't already, is to get a French speaker to check the wording you are using, to make sure the meaning is clear.

A clear, unambiguous, registered letter should get a response.

I'm not sure you would get a "tax receipt" as such but I think you should have an itemised statement of the entire transaction, detailing the selling price and the taxes and charges deducted and the amount you actually received. At least that is what I saw my seller receive when we signed the acte de vente, it was handed over on the spot, but I don't know if all notaires do things the same.

EuroTrash

That'll be because she's immobilised everything
Spellchecks and machine translators, dontcha just love 'em

dmu

I'm not sure what "tax receipt" would be in French in this context, since there are several words for tax and for receipt in French, but as you say, everything should be included in the itemised statement that the Notaire gave the OP ("paperwork in an envelope"). I'd be inclined to send HMRC a photocopy of the pertinent pages, and they'll come back to the OP if they can't sort out the figures.....

cyrian

We didn't get a complete account of our house purchase until months afterwards with a refund of some fees.
The notaire was waiting to see if any other charges arose.
We were not expecting a refund.