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Surely, a vehicle is a “bien meuble”, and not a “bien immeuble” ?
The object of a SCI is to hold (and manage) immovable property, rather than movable property, so how would what you are considering actually work from a legal perspective ?
Voiture de société : quels sont les avantages fiscaux ?(Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9,pr%C3%A9tendre%20%C3%A0%20un%20v%C3%A9hicule%20professionnel.
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That was my first reaction but then I noticed they say an SC, not an SCI.
You couldn’t buy a motorhome with an SCI but maybe you can set up a société civile that is not an SCI to buy things other than immobilier.
It seems a potentially very complicated way of owning a motorhome, but they don’t say what they think it will achieve that couldn’t be achieved in a simpler way. Maybe it is worth them pursuing it if there is a specific problem they are trying to bypass.
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I would then add, that the designation “immobilière” doesn’t remove the qualification of non-commercial activity from a “société civile”, at least, that’s my understanding from this:
This is probably what Kimmy7 is referring to.
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Ah, I see, another tax “optimisation” wheeze and seemingly totally unrelated to holding immovable assets ?
I’m still not quite seeing how this wouldn’t potentially be an “abus de biens sociaux” if the shareholders are using the vehicle for private use, rather than for business purposes, or some kind of “avantage en nature” - presumably the accountants in question have a suitably backed response from the French fiscal administration, or some case law ?
Also, not entirely sure what the liability situation would be with regard to insurance - presumably the business would take out a professional insurance that would also cover personal use and designate the entitled drivers ?
I seem to have more questions than answers !
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I am not quite “getting” the point.
At first it appears to be a way for people who do not live in France to buy a motorhome, register it in France and go on an extended tour of France. Presumably to overcome the issue of not being allowed to keep a foreign vehicle here for a long period.
But unless the people have residence rights they would still need a visa to allow them to stay, and if they have a visa they must have an address and so presumably could register in the normal way and save all the expense of setting this up.
So maybe that is not the point at all.
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Yes, it’s a way out of a ‘pickle’ that we have been steered towards… a long tory but, after nearly 2 yrs looking for a Moho, we found one, in France. We arranged that my sister (French resident) should be keeper and we would be owners and it seemed to be working ok with everyone, including insurance… We went to pick up Motorhyome, in France only to find that the insurance agent hadn’t mentioned the 5T to Ins Co so we could not go ahead… then we started to get many different stories and, as we are determined to be legal, my sister looked into it more and don’t want to do anything iffy (and neither do we). We had already paid for the Moho and the admin to register it… cue, 3 days on a forecourt, in the motorhome, trying to find a solution at which point we found out that, as UK residents, we can’t drive a foreign registered vehicle in the UK… we came home on the coach.
I have got an Irish passport so no issues regarding living in EU countries - we are selling our house as we are sick of UK and want to travel around Europe seeing all the things that we’ve missed in our working lives - my husband has recently had 9 months off sick with Mental Health Issues brought on by work… we don’t want to be tied to UK any more than we have to be for pensions etc… otherwise we could import it (although apparently this will attract £10,000 VAT/Import duties plus we’ll be tied to MOT here annually) hence this SC solution was suggested… we don’t know if it’s ok, it seems legitimate but our secondary question is, if we do this, can we drive the Motorhome back to UK to stock it and visit family? Please be kind - we already know that we’ve messed-up 
Caught the tail end of this. Apologies if I am completely on the wrong track and I haven’t read the texts posted, but I will, but I think it would be structured as a rental of the vehicle to the user by the company. ie a trading activity.
If French law and more importantly, tax on benefits in kind accruing from an investment doesn’t catch this or if the ownership structure can be tweaked to fit it might work rather well?
Even without the 5T I don’t think this would have worked. France doesn’t make the same rather bizarre distinction between owner and keeper as the UK does. In France it is the owner who registers and insures the vehicle. The insurer will take a copy of the registration document to check the date you bought it, your address etc. If your name is not on the reg doc I do not think they would proceed.
I understand now what you are trying to achieve but cannot comment on the SCI route, I do not see why this would not work for France, I do not know if it would overcome the issue of driving a foreign registered vehicle in your home country UK, good luck with it.
Hello
Thank you for your interest!
Yes- we did have issues with ins agent wanting to put our address as sister’s or sister as owner - it was bizarre!!
We now have SC (no I as that’s for real estate) it is legal and the SC owns the Moho all legally done and then carte gris in SC name as is insurance. The SC then allows us to drive it as managers… very complicated I know but we hope that it will be ok for now!
Kim
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