Hi why are the Brits allways complaining. We moved over this year and will pay Taxes Fonieres as we have a bigger house with 3 acres. The payment is only a third of what we paid in Dagenham which was one of the biggest council estate Europe. ? ? Our roads did not get swept and are filthy and grass area's were not cut and roads are full of pot holes. These who dislike as they say should return home if the grass is greener back home.
Oh dear Ben.......I am not sure this will be a helpful comment...but here goes....we lived in Berkshire before moving here.....we had a large 4 bed house with a granny annexe....quarter acre garden and 30ft x 16 ft pool.....we had weekly rubbish collection...a great library, social services, roads, schools and GPs...and paid £3,600 a year. We moved to a converted barn in the Dordogne...ok its a bit bigger....and has 1.5 acres....but it also has no streetlights, rubbish collection, mains drainage etc. in fact...we cant put a finger on what we do get here....we went to see the Maire...and asked why we paid so much (both taxes together around 4500 euros....) ah, he said....you have THE view! there are only two of us here...in fact I spend the larger part of the year in the UK so am domiciled in the UK so in reality...my husband lives alone, officially...we have just opened the letter...which stated, our taxes are to rise this year......! so we get b****ger all.....and pay hugely for it. When it snowed...we were stuck up our road for 10 days...and no council workers cleared any snow or gritted....I fail to see what we are paying for....friends also have noticed a hike this year.....so I wish you luck...but dont count on it....sorry to be the messenger of doom...and I hope you fare better than we did.
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June, I just checked and you need to be over 75...
You are entitled to be exempt from taxe fonciere for the two years following completion of renovation works.
Plus if you are over 60 and on a slightly low income you can be either totally exempt or entitled to a reduction.
Go and talk to your local Tax office, but don't be put off if they say you are not entitled to an exemption on the taxe fonciere, I had to phone the main Centre de Fonciere for our department and insist that I was due this examption. In the end they gave in - probably in an effort to get rid of a bossy annoying english woman!
Tax fonciere is presumably the equivalent to rates. When we ran our gites we paid taxe professionnelle which was superceded by the taxe sur le valeur locatif (CFE??) as well as the taxe fonciere and taxe d'habitation (like any other business in France)
We did manage to insist that we only pay our taxe de sejour on a 'reele' basis rather than a forfait basis.
I do think you are wasting your time to try to claim a reduction on your taxe fonciere. Eg We paid the full TV licence for our business at the beginning of the year even though we hadn't traded since end Sept the previous year and that our gite business was closed at the end of march.
I tried for a rebate a few years ago on the grounds that the building, which we had inherited, was initially a gîte and a restaurant which couldn't be exploited as the pipes had burst (no water, no heating) and that the roof was leaking and needed to be repaired in full.
My "dossier" was accepted, but I was told to have no big illusions as, in principle, the fact that you own real estate has precedence over the fact that you can't use it. The next thing I heard, my brother's account had been seized for the full amount.
Ah? Yes. It turned out that if you voluntarily stop your activity, rather than waiting for the roof to fall on your head, you aren't eligible for a rebate. I hope you will all be luckier than we were!
I would be very interested indeed to know whether there are any ways of obtaining a reduction. In my case, age related, I am aproaching 65yrs and live alone. So, age or single person allowance. Does anybody have any information. I would be very grateful for any responses. Thank you June
Mine arrived yesterday. i pay by prelevement and it lists the proposed payments. Next year's payments have gone up by over 40% but the worst is that for November and December this year they are proposing to more than triple the payment per month. Is this because they didn't do their sums right and now we are paying for it?
Like you I am thinking of trying for a rebate, mainly on the grounds that my gite income is down by 35% so I am paying for empty buildings. The regional tourist board agrees that it has been a very bad summer here in Brittany. Do you think I am on a wasted journey trying this avenue?
Thanks Ben...
Contact your local "Impots" office, it's always possible to ask for a re-evalution of your property. But they're also going to ask you why you decided to come this year and not the year when you bought the house.
For the one you're renovating you might actually be eligible for a rebate. But that depends entirely on the extend of the renovations you're undertaking. I undertook a total renovation of my little vineyard-farmhouse and during the two years that it took to complete it was declared uninhabitable and I payed a negligible amount of tax foncieres
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I hate annual bills and so we pay our Tax Foncieres and Habitation monthly, no big bill landing on the doorstep (so to speak).
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