Agree with Tim - always blame someone else. Ideally the internet. That always goes down a treat.
Roger I am sorry you had trouble 'rectifying' your Taxe Foncière. In my experience the 'powers that be' will always rectify situation because they have rules to follow - and they will follow them - usually to the letter.
The big mistake is to suggest that it was 'their mistake'. Thay don't like that - at all. The trick, even with 'tax ladies' who have the power of life and death - they don't by they way - is to put all the blame on someone else, or yourself as a "stupid foreigner" or no-one at all. Of course it doesn't help if you yourself have made mistakes, as you indicated. In that case HUGE apologies for wasting their time etc. It really is just a matter of how you put things. As to the rectifying, I reapeat that that should be simple - always assuming a mistake has been made of course. What is certainly harder, but by no means impossible, is getting any money back from the tax man. I site here an example of a client of mine who was forced to pay just over 17,000 euros in Capotal Gains tax by his notaire when he sold his property upon which he had actually made a loss. I appealed for him and nearly two years later he got his money back, all of it.
I would think you could/should still get your overpayment back if you go about it in the right way and as long as the
As to the "Fiche d'évaluation" it is not normal or usual for a Notaire to provide that, unless asked, although I agree with you that it would be a very good thing to be included. Perhaps the Estate Agents should be obligated to do that?
There are many things which should happen or be done before disasters and it is only the benefit of hindsight, having not taken good advice in the first place that throws these problems up. It always amazes me how 'ex-pats' come to France and do, or rather do not do everything they would do in the UK. However, that does give me an interesting job.
Sorry, I differ with Tim Abady, over the Taxe Fonciére, in saying ‘and this can easily be rectified'. At least our experiences with the ‘tax lady’ as we call her, who was difficult and ‘played hard to get’ over making any adjustment to our assessment. At first there was absolutely no admission of any error, despite the intervention of our Maire Délégué, who wrote on our behalf asking for the corrections and a refund for the years when we had clearly overpaid. In the end she accepted the corrected figures, but no refund at all, even though two years could have been possible. We felt battered and bruised by the whole experience, but our Maire Délégué had warned us this ‘tax lady’ had the power of life and death in these matters for the whole of the Haute Vienne.
It seems I had made one big mistake, and two small mistakes in completing the form H1.
When I did the measurements for the pool I was so unsure what was the correct thing to do, I went so far as to write out my questions, take a photograph of the pool and the surrounding paving stones. I imposed precise measurements on the photograph of the respective measurements, and asked for a reply. That letter and the accompanying photograph was ignored completely, and, since the assessment includes some kind of aggregation of the two separate measurements, our Maire Délégué said he thought they had given us an ‘Olympic sized swimming pool’ in our assessment.
The small mistakes I made concerned first; a wash hand basin which was in truth a laundry sink; and second, describing as two rooms, two spaces which were in fact only one room. There is no doorway between our sitting room and our dining room, even though there is a partial dividing wall; and a space as two bedrooms which in fact is only one, but divided by a folding partition.
Those mistakes came from being completely misled by the estate agents’ descriptions of the property. I completed the form H1, having absolutely nothing to go on, other than the estate agents’ documentation, so therein lies another lesson. Those two small mistakes should not have happened, and the estate agent should have applied the correct definitions in the description of the house. So I would most strongly endorse what Tim said about asking for a copy of the 'Fiche d'évaluation'. I now believe we should have been given it at the time we completed the 'compromis', so perhaps the notaire bears some of the blame too!
Finally, ten years ago, we had no one to turn to, so I would end by saying how much SFN helps with disseminating valuable knowledge and experiences, and how crucial that is to those who need that help.
I live in the Albi area and my taxe fonciere has gone up fourfold this year. The explanation was the same as yours, that the tax had not gone up since 1970. I have just received my taxe d'habitation and that too has gone up by a factor of four.
Sarah
A couple of things I forgot to mention in my earlier post;
1. Whilst at the Impots also ask for a copy of the earlier "Fiche d'évaluation", the one your previous TF has been based on for all these years, so that you can compare the two.
2. And, really for Robert Scotton, each part of the TF is listed in detail on the Tax demand.
Sarah,
I sympathize with your situation and the shock the new valuation must have had. The bilingual helpline has dealt with several similar cases in the past. The first thing you should do, tomorrow when you go to the 'Impots', is ask for a copy of the 'Fiche d'évaluation" for your property. You are absolutely entitled to have a copy of this and it will show the basis upon which the "Valeur Locative Cadastrale" is calculated ( as Roger Boaden calls is the 'cadastral rental value'. It is vitally important to check that the information on this evaluation is correct because they DO make mistakes and if they have this can easily be rectified.
The Taxe Foncière itself is calculated from this evaluation and a 'taux' or rate is applied for each of three beneficiaries: The Commune, the Department and finally the Region. Added up this makes your Taxe Foncière demand each year.
In certain cases people can be eligible for a reduction or exoneration of the TF, if you were over 75 with a low income for instance, 10,000 euros PA if single or 15,000 for a couple.
Anyway, start with the copy of the Fiche d'évaluation and work it from there. If I can be of any help check out my profile and let me know. Good luck.
The time lag does seem to be more than in the UK but as taxes usually go up only then it can work with you. Planning applications can often trigger enormous increases. Additional bathrooms can too but frequentlty those are nor declared on refurbs especially if DIY. But please bear in mind that planning applications here are much cheaper than the UK (where costs have just gone up at about 4 x inflation) and where in many districts you will have to pay another tax (known as a section 106 agreement) to actually get your planning consent. That will be put down as a contribution to infrastructure, schools, parks etc etc. That’s even for just another bedroom in a house. In fact it can be argued it’s much cheaper here in France. Planning appliactions in the UK are also habitually dealt with by demanding last minute changes and then asking for the original application to be withdrawn so that statistics for decisions meet government targets! It’a an utter racket!
We suffered Taxe Fonciere problems too, but several years ago. We bought our property from an English couple, he being a retired architect. We took on trust documentation handed to us when the house was finally signed over. About nine months after we had taken over we get a letter from the Impôts Locaux office demanding we sign off a planning application. Since we had never sought such an application it was puzzling. When we got to the bottom of it, our predecessors had put in a planning application for alterations in the house, and the building of a pool in the garden. Once that aspect was sorted, we received a form H1 from the tax lady, duly completed it and saw our Taxe Fonciere leap, more than doubling. However, it wasn’t until six years later we had a chance to compare Taxe Fonciere charges with our neighbours, both of whom paid far less, but with far more in terms of habitable space and land use. We got our Maire Délégué involved and with his help got a reduction, but during that exercise we discovered the true reasons behind the massive increase. It seems that all our predecessors had not brought the assessments up to date, and so the ‘cadastral rental value’ had never been adjusted to take account of any improvements. The only moral out of our experience is to demand to see chapter and verse of the Taxe Fonciere, and in particualr to be given a copy of the form H1. When eventually the tax lady gave us a copy of what was on file with her did we discover this enormous time lag.
Good link Doreen.
If I compare Tarn Albi to our taxes my Habitation at 18.34% is 3.3% higher but my foncière at 21.24% seems to be 7% lower.I've no idea how they calculate it. We are quite unlucky because were we 500m further down the road my both habitation and foncière would be both be 6% lower as we would be in the next commune. I'm think of applying for a boundary change :-)
No indictment Robert, just safety first :-)
Ours was less than last year. The issue was raised on a post a while ago and so we found out. The crumbling ruin and road that needs repair twice a year is our saving grace. If the ruin is knocked down and the road which goes through two parts of it totally redone then it will go up a lot. So for now we hope the tumbledown house stays.
I disagree with David's point about ex patriots though because in general we are finding locally people like our French neighbours in the next hamlet where it is all neat and tidy with a lovely gite at one house has gone up like a rocket.
John's point on registered with reply slip is exactly right, comparing houses depends on what they have done or not done as well as floor space but local (paper) surveys are very useful.
I have seen my taxes on my house increase enormously too. My taxe fonciere almost doubled one year (but below your levels) because it transpired that they had my house down as a shop/bar and residential when in fact it had been empty for 10 yaers before I bought it as a wreck in 2002. They said it should have gone up earlier and I should count myself lucky I was not being backcharged! This year my taxe d'habitation doubled because my income went up and I was no longer eligible for abatement. I would love to know how many of these isolated vilalges would exist without the increased income paid by arriving expats! We have seen massive paving, landscaping projects in our village costing many 100's of thousands of euros which would never happen in a UK village of 800. Nevre sen so much concrete paving and road widening for tractors, increasing size of artics etc.
I've emailed a notaire for advice and am off to the office des Impots (again!) tomorrow so will update
Hi Sarah,
Firstly I’d like to give my sympathy to your plight.
I bought a house last November and like you checked out the Taxe Fonciere. In my case that meant asking the agent and was given the amount that was last paid…ie 177 Euros.
In my ignorance I accepted this figure because the place was a ‘project’.
I heard nothing from the authorities until September this year and then was presented with a bill for 500 Euros. Unfortunately the bill was sent to my parents address as this was the one I used when I bought the place. I questioned the bill eventually and was given a form to fill in which would have had to have been verified by the Maire??
What I want to know is, is there a formula that the bills are based on and if so how can I/we get hold of such a thing???#
I take on board Johns comments about registered post, it seems to be the only way to operate in this country. I can only hope this isn’t a malicious indictment of Funtionaire’s mentality??
Good luck…
Sarah, Three quick suggestions...
We always register any letter we send to officialdom with a notice of receipt which we file. I think a lot of unregistered stuff can go astray.
I suggest you talk to neighbours and compare your floorspace and outbuildings against what they are paying.
Our local paper, the Var Matin (or Mataing as they say here), did a comparison of all our local property taxes which you can find here
http://edito.nicematin.net/img/impot-locaux-var.pdf
Maybe you local paper did the same which might give you some insight into he increase.
Good luck.