Hello everybody
I have a registered meuble de tourisme business - micro enterprise. I have a little problem at the moment and would appreciate your thoughts. I have had repeated business over the past number of years from an English firm who give professional expertise to a local company. They normally rent 2 - 3 weeks every month and I put them through as holiday rentals, pay my cotisations and taxe de sejour.
My present problem is that they are now stuck here - they are still working, as it is an essential business and I have given them a monthly price. This is likely to run is to a 5-6 month rental.
I understand that
I am not meant to be renting ( presumably the fact that it is now their semi permanent home would override this )
season rentals have a max of 90 days
The apartment that they are in is not one of my seasonal lets - it is normally kept for family.
To date I have not collected any money from them as I do not know how I should declare it.
Should it be paid into a separate account aside from my business? And if so how would it be taxed - social contributions?
Or would it be still okay to treat as holiday let?
Thanks
I can’t really give you specific advice. But it may help to know that we run a gîte using “holiday” short term let contracts and a furnished longer term rental within the same business structure. Doesn’t seem to be a problem for the tax man, as they’ve never refused the tax we pay…
I think, and you need to check this our with a professional, that if these people do have a permanent residence elsewhere then you can give them a rolling 90 day contract as they will not be renting your place as their permanent home. And they will have no rights as they would with a short term (year) contract, and do not pay taxe d’hab (you pay CFE instead)
Oh, and despite confinement rentals can be open for key workers. 5% of them in our region are.
Very helpful Jane, thank you. I will try and get someone to advise on the rolling contract. It would suit best Otherwise I will prepare a short term contract for the lat.
I’ve dug a little deeper in my memory bank, and google, and its the loi Hoguet that set the 90 day limit. So I told you wrong, it MUSTN’T be a rolling contract. Quite the opposite. You will have to issue consecutive contracts. The big issue is these location saisonnière can only be given to people who have a permanent residence elsewhere, and that’s the thing that causes the major problems.
There have been cases in the South of France where it has been accepted by judges that a six months let is ok as a location saisonnière, but it seems because of the specific geography that the winter season on the coast is 6 months, But surely life in the time of Coronavirus would be acceptable as a reason to extend too?
I know where a land-deal went sour after judges ruled that a contract, even though done afresh each year, (which included a clause saying that this was not a continuous contract)… … Huh… was indeed “rolling-contract”… and it all ended up very badly for the Owner.
Re property…
Perhaps a gap-in-time… when the folk vacate the property… between contracts might work… but it is a difficult area…
Okay very useful Jane - Yes, they have a permanent address which they will be returning to when there is a little more easement and their replacement can come. I think in this case that longer than 90 days should be acceptable. A lot of taxe de sejour though!
