Hi all
Just wondering if anyone can advise please.
We are in UK and sold our home with exchange in a week. We will be buying a motor home and staying in the UK for 2-3 weeks and then travelling to France to search for a new house and lifestyle. I have realised, by phoning a few companies, that without a UK address we are unable to insure our motor home! They require a UK address/residency.
We hope to complete on a house purchase within 3-5 months in France so guess that we would apply for residency there and change all the necessary paperwork accordingly.
Its that gray area between now and then on insurance that I’m confused about.
Any advice or recommendations for an insurance company willing to accept no uk address greatly appreciated.
X
That might be tricky, insurers assess risk based on the postcode and will expect the address to match the one to which the vehicle is registered. The vehicle has to be registered to a current UK address by law and you will be running afoul of that one if you leave your old address on the V5.
Do you have a member of your family who can provide a temporary “base address”?
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TBH I don’t see a legal way round this. Making yourself technically homeless creates all kinds of problems, because with no address and no residency status you don’t tick any boxes and companies will be reluctant to deal with you - how can you be contacted, how can you be held accountable for anything. How are you planning to buy a motorhome, with no address to register it to? I think the only answer is to get yourself some kind of temporary address asap, and if you’re intendng to live in France why not try and get an address in France, a hostel will probably do, and buy a French motorhome, which will at least save the (sometimes considerable) hassle of getting it onto French plates, changing the insurance etc.
[quote=“daydreamer, post:1, topic:16911”]
We hope to complete on a house purchase within 3-5 months in France so guess that we would apply for residency there
[/quote]As EU citizens you don’t apply for residency, you establish residency by living here. Once you can prove you’ve lived here for 3 months and you meet France’s residence criteria for EU incomers (working/inactifs with an income above the threshold/etc), you can start applying for residents’ rights such as healthcare etc. You have researched all this, haven’t you?
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Yes I have family here so I can use their address even though I’m not there permanently. Thank you.
Thanks for the info. Yes I can use a family members address as a temporary solution until we buy a home there. I am aware that we can apply for EU permanent residency after 5 years of living there and proving so. I am not aware that we are unable to use their healthcare after three months without proving income? Ive not heard of that! What if we are self supported and don’t need to work? What about retired folk? I don’t understand this part of yr message.
@daydreamer
Hi Julie…
I think you might find it useful to read on through the posts under the various Sections/Headings of this Forum…
Especially the threads which deal with Health Care & Carte Vitale.
.
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You mean French permanent residency.
The French healthcare system is contributory - either via employment, State retirement eligibility or, if you’re neither working nor of State retirement age, by payments based loosely on your income (less an allowance). If your income levels are below fixed levels you may be entitled to subsidised or free cover - although unlikely as a new arrival. You may be required to take out expensive fully private cover.
As Stella says - take a look at all the info available on SFN.
Proving income is all part of proving that your residence is “stable et régulière” as per the criteria for legal residence, as opposed to “irrégulière” ie living here without meeting those conditions. Stability means being able to prove you have address that you live at, via EDF bills and suchlike, and réguliarité means meeting whatever conditions apply to your residency status (EU worker exercising treaty rights, pensioner or whatever). If your status is “inactif”, ie for economically inactive people below retirement age, the rules say:
"Si vous êtes ressortissant de l’EEE ou de la Suisse et que vous êtes « inactif » : vous devez être couvert par une assurance maladie et disposer de ressources suffisantes, équivalentes au montant du revenu de solidarité active (RSA) ou de l’allocation de solidarité aux personnes âgées (ASPA). Vous ne pouvez donc pas bénéficier de la CMU complémentaire.(CMU-C is the free/subsidised cover Simon mentioned, which you can’t benefit from as a new arrival.)
Attention : le terme « inactif » vise les personnes qui, n’ayant ni le statut de pensionné (vieillesse, invalidité, rentiers accident du travail ou maladie professionnelle), ni celui d’étudiant (âgé de moins de 28 ans), s’installent en France sans y exercer d’activité professionnelle et sans pouvoir justifier d’une protection sociale à quelque titre que ce soit."
These criteria are used to decide eligibility for most state entitlements. If you don’t meet the criteria you are “irregular” which doesn’t mean you’ll be chucked out but it does mean that you don’t have certain entitlements. Basically it’s the state saying: If you don’t meet the criteria then we are not responsible for you…
In practical terms what happens is that CPAM will ask for details of household income when you apply for your carte vitales. Doesn’t have to be “earned” income, it can be rental income, investment income, private pensions or anything really. As Simon says, French healthcare is contributory based on income and once you start submitting your tax returns here, your healthcare eligibility/cotisations will be calculated from that
Hope this clarifies.
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