Obviously over the years there’s lots of info on here for people moving TO France, but rather less for those of us heading in the other direction. I’d be grateful therefore if those of you who have been through it, or are currently in the process, could share what are the procedures we have to go through to extricate ourselves. Thanks.
In a nutshell, this is our life:
We have lived here, fulltime 19 years, we are in our late 70s.
We have 10 year CdS and S1s.
We pay tax in France and the UK.
We have a French bank account each (and several accounts in the UK)
We both hold British passports.
We have a main house here in France and a gite.
We have 2 LHD cars, one of which is leased, which we will sell.
We have 1 RHD car on French plates which we will take,
We have wills with a French notaire (but nothing in the UK).
We HAD a property which we rented out in the UK but sold at the beginning of 2025.
We have already bought ourselves a house in the UK which will become our home fulltime once we have left France.
@JohnBoy is the most recent leaver I can remember.
But the only thing that is imperative to me is to write new wills the second you set foot in UK with intention of staying and there become UK residents.
(Or rather get them prepared, and sign them on day 1)
The process is straightforward but of course everything hinges on selling the French house, until that is close there’s not much you can do other than get quotes for things like removal companies.
Agreed. Apart from some clothes, a few pictures and ornaments, a couple of mugs, 4 dessert spoons everything else will stay. I reckon I’ve furnished the 2 bed house in Chichester for less than the cost of removals. But in fact removals is a pointless concept. 4 large sofas, 5 dining tables, the largest seating 10, nothing would fit in our new “tiny house”.
I think it would be important to notify the change to UK address to the fisc immediately. Ditto giving up your health coverage by notifying CPAM next after the fisc.
And if your official move date is by the end of a calendar year, my gut feeling is that’s better. As for some things being there on 1st January, even if you left soon after, might still count you as here for the whole yesr.
I’d leave Wise in place to pay any trailing bills but probably close bank accts.
Not having had to do this before, I’m just guessing as to what the priority after the wills would be.
That raises an interesting issue, because “immediately” is such a vague concept in our case. It’s not like we will have a day when the removals men arrive and we hand over the keys.
We are already spending time in the UK and that will gradually increase, but we won’t yet have sold our house in France.
I’m struggling to see when I will stop being a French resident and become a UK one.
That’s the point. The fisc won’t consider you gone till you change your address to abroad and to avoid challenge, other indicators of where you live must line up too. Hence my caution on bank accounts.
I would think it’s the day you decide it to be. Before my mother died I stayed as UK resident despite coming back very regularly - but not majority of time. And then I set a date for my “move”, prepared all the changeof address stuff etc etc and sent it all out. And from then on stayed here far more than there.
I am sure there are others but yes, guilty as charged.
Having left France on 17th December we are technically still non UK residents until 18th June when we have lived here for 183 days and officially change from being French to UK residents.
We have worked our way through alot of officialdom during the last 6 months and I will post a list here of ‘things to do’ after I have sat down and thought about it.
I apologise in advance that it may not be comprehensive and will not be one size fits all.
I’ll be back soon.
Are you sure? If you have no other home, are with family, and plan to be in UK for 183 days in the tax year then you meet the residency test. There’s also cut offs at 30 and 91 days as well under different scenarios.
I wondered this too. When I was working in the US I couldn’t be in the UK for more than 90 days per year, and the very expensive lawyers and accountants the company hired on my behalf were crazy strict about it. I have no real understanding of the ins and outs which is why I hesitated to comment before you did @JaneJones, but I absolutely understood it not to be a blanket ‘wherever you spent most of the year’ type deal.
as you are not working the change in residency could be a watchout. If you have houses you can live in in both countries and assets in both this could get a bit messy with hmrc and impots both claiming you as resident and then you get into the tax treaties… the 183 day “rule” is not 100% definitive. So without a sale you need to change your foyer definitively (doctors etc) and a real change in days you spend in Uk vs France. Best is the french house is sold before you move back then its clean.
revoke immediately any uk france double tax forms where you are legitimately avoiding uk tax on pensions or income.
if you plan to sell it all up in france you have a limited window to sell without risking french capital gains taxes on your main residence - talk to your notaire. Dont forget you might also get hit with cgt in the uk on the sale and its worked out differently - but there are ways and means to manage this though they have a price tag . Again its a lot better to sell if you can then move.
I can go on a bit but these are some main landmines…
I was wondering about this too. It might take longer than expected to sell the French house. So if you’’ve already told the French tax office you’ve moved to the UK and the house doesn’t sell until some considerable time after that, you risk having the transaction treated as sale of a second home.
I second that. Remembering my FIL who died intestate, it was a nightmare and took two years for MIL to get anything paid and settled and it wasn’t even as if they had pots of money or lots of properties, just the family home and a couple of bank accounts!
We moved back to the UK permanently three months ago. I had a weekly checklist of things to do from 6 weeks before the move to 6 weeks after; ticking things off was quite rewarding!
Even if you are only taking a limited amount of stuff I think you will still need a Transfer of Residence inventory for HMRC. We did letters with all the details by recorded delivery for the impôts (who were the most straightforward and efficient in updating all our details), Orange, who required proof of a valid reason to end the contract and all our other contracts. The estate agent did electricity and water when the sale went through. Orange also required the return of the equipment after we had left, so I had to get a friend to do that. They are supposed to allow you to keep your email for six months, but when I cancelled my mobile contract a couple of weeks ago my email account disappeared too. The mutuelle was relatively easy, we had our house insurances with the bank, so that was straightforward. Overall, the French end was a bureaucratic experience needing lots of back-up written information with evidence of our UK address and the UK end relatively easy by phone. Changing our tax residence here has not been easy. The lack of UK credit rating is still difficult. The medical experience has been very good, especially for my husband who has complex medical needs and our records from our MT have been useful to the GP and the local hospital. Hope this helps. Bon courage!
Just to elaborate on tax residence. No problem with the impôts who did everything for us at that end. We phoned HMRC and changed details with all our pension providers on arrival. HMRC asked for a letter with all details by recorded delivery which we sent. After several weeks with no reply, I phoned again, the person I spoke to knew her stuff and contacted the relevant specialist office. She said our tax residence would be changed within 48 hours (a couple of months after our return to England). We did not have any written confirmation from them, but our bank was able to tell us that we are now officially registered as tax resident. Nothing has changed on our pension codes, so we have to chase that, but we are putting aside the estimated tax, if HMRC decide to ask us to do self-assessment in the autumn.
