Hi I am hoping someone can advise me about what to try next with regard to paying my taxes! Here’s what I’ve tried to date:
Bought maison secondaire in minervois region August 2019. Water, EDF and internet all set up and being paid by standing order. The internet was with help from SF so thank you.
1 checked with neighbour I was going to visit the correct tax office.
2 Went to local tax office October 2020 as had received no tax bills. My french is poor (but improving) but did manage to make myself clear, with the help of person behind me in the queue, that I wanted to pay taxes. Tried to give address but they would not take it and asked for bank account details, checked database and told me no tax was due. Tried to protest but without success and there was a big queue, so left with tail between legs.
3 On my return to UK, Nov2020 wrote (in French) to tax office asking to pay the bill and for future bills to be sent to my UK home address and enclosing photocopy of notaire attestation of purchase of house, highlighting address and dates etc and copy of photo ID.
There has been nothing received at my French or UK houses. I am at a loss as to what to do next. Aside from wanting to contribute to my French community by paying taxes that are well overdue, I am also worried I will end up being fined.
Has anyone any idea at all why I have not received any tax bills and what I should do next?
Thank youd
Perhaps you could contact the notaire who dealt with the purchase to seek advice?
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Thanks. Will give that a go.
My advice is don’t panic Sarah. Just document everything you have done to try and comply and, in my experience, the French tax people are very understanding. They are not out to screw the good guys, like you, who are trying to be compliant.
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Thanks John. I’ve emailed the notaire now so I’ll add that to the list. I’m quite sure if my French was better this would be a whole lot easier.
Sarah, I agree with the others try not to worry too much, you’ve made huge efforts to sort it out. I’ve fallen in love with DeepL as an online translator, SO much better from the G)(&(&^ company I won’t use adn great for writing emails!
I think it took at least 18 months until we had our first bills arrive for TF and TdH.
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Thanks for the DeepL tip!
Deeple is the bee’s knees and I have a subscription. Though it’s as well to have reasonable French to avoid cut and paste howlers.
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Deepl is OK, sometimes Google is better for individual texts (and vice versa) - both are AI based these days.
Be aware that both can store input text (Deepl promises not to if you pay for their commercial offering) and should not be used for anything with identifiable personal data.
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Thanks for that information @anon88169868 - I should have been aware of course that Google at least was likely to store stuff! I wonder, given that I have never logged into Google - we had a logon as a business in order to run the analytis stuff on our website but it’s gone - would what I put into the translator be identifiable as me?
I guess this is quite usual for the stage I’m at but with written and to a large extent spoken French when I have thinking time I can often manage ok. It’s when I’m faced with an actual person I have so much difficulty.
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I had no idea of this alarming fact!
@toryroo 100% agree, DeepL is wonderfully clever, and I have some multi-lingual friends who are also impressed by it.
(As opposed to Google Translate etc, which can be quite hilarious sometimes).
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My experience is that my spoken French deserts me less when talking to fonctionnaires, who are used to dealing with people who aren’t bright, or a very deaf, or are any sort of foreign or just plain don’t understand that area of life! Also, the vocabulary is limited to the subject area. What is a nightmare for spoken French in my view (being somewhat deaf as well as foreign) is the chat with neighbours and the like,who could be talking about anything!
Hubby used to do quite a bit of translating (albeit French to English). I usually get him to correct my emails etc but after I started using this (only this week - doh!!) he has double checked what they have done and been very, very impressed. We even copied some bits that he had (re)written for me and tried it in there and got the same sentences so he wsa most impressed!
I would trust my data to anyone before Google and the large Americans likes!
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You need to be aware that any text you put into an online translator or checker (Reverso have quite a good French grammar checker) could be retained.
Officially it is to help train their neural networks and is not held for long but no personal details or confidential information should be present in the text you submit - and absolutely no third party details.
Deepl have a commercial service and the T&C is different - that promises not to use anything you submit for training its systems, but I’d still be cautions and processing any 3rd party data is probably against GDPR, as I said - it’s also against Deepl’s T’s&C’s I believe).
I thought I’d post an update not least for anyone googling this topic on the forum.
The notaire (thanks Graham) responded within 12 hours and said this is what she thinks has happened:
Taxman (her gender specification) was late filing the change of address so the vendors would have been billed in 2020. They would have responded to say property sold (they have bought again in the same village actually, no one moves out…too nice…). This left taxman two choices: either send me a bill or leave it to this year to send bill for both years. Clearly he’s chosen the later.
Thanks to everyone for tips and general reassurance.
Phew! Though I should have known that taxes catch up with you in the end completely unaided.
Sarah
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2 years? the owner of the property as at 1st January is responsible for the taxes for the property for the whole year even if they sold it on 2nd January.
If you bought it in 2020 on any day except 1st January 2020, the only property tax bill you should receive would have been in the last quarter of 2020 - and so far as I understand the previous owner is liable. Your bill for 2021, as I understand is the first year you’d be liable for, would be received in last quarter of 2021. @graham is this correct?
If your notaire arranged something different, such as a pro rata days split (and I gather this would be rare), you should have been informed and given the chance to agree as part of the sale terms
@KarenLot
The content of this guide remains correct although there can be a separate treaty between the outgoing and incoming owners/occupiers arranged by the notaire at the time of sale. But yes, in essence, the owner at 1st January in any year is responsible for Foncière. TdH is all but now diminished across France but the legal resposibility remains the same, the person in occupation at the 1st January is responsible and the bill is usually presented in the last quarter of the year to which it relates. The fisc are essentially uninterested in the niceties of any private treaty between occupiers/owners and will bill who they understand to have responsibility according to law at the 1st January.
If a treaty was agreed and the bill was sent to th old owner/occupier, then it is often a simple matter to refer it back to the notaire but often, a fixed, agreed amount will have been set in advance and included in the sale proceeds.
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Hi yes that’s my understanding also and is in fact the case. However, we brought it in August 2019 and so are liable in 2020 and 2021.