When you are dead and gone, you won’t have to worry about IHT is my way of thinking about it although it does not really affect us. The heirs have a choice and if the deceased had not had the property in the first place in France, they would not have inherited anything anyway. No pockets in a shroud as they say. It certainly would not make me return if I was enjoying my life here
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We are all different and that’s not the way I wish be.
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A bit like the Welsh ‘hiraeth’, although I am surprised it is not spelled hiraedd. 
Such a pleasing thing to choose a song for a significant occasion, even death. Fran’s was ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ for no other reason that she liked it. Mine, for any of you who happen to be there at the time, is ‘Myfanwy’, in Welsh by a Welsh male voice choir. 
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I don’t think there is anything which would make me go back to the UK (expulsion excepted of course 
) but we may choose to go back in the future and have talked about this recently. I have a large family in the UK and the last 5 years have been very difficult with close family members dying or being seriously ill, and being so far away has made things very difficult. If we do go back, we would almost certainly move to Mid Wales, where we lived for several years in the 1980’s or maybe a bit further south into Carmarthenshire.
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I think that’s so sensible. The turning point for us was our own health issues (both of us) and a real awareness of our own mortality. OH has said he would “never go back” and then we walked the canal towpath every afternoon with Bertie our mutt, and talked and talked and talked. And we realised that France, in fact, was not our last destination.
I think those who have family here have easier options than those who don’t.
Of course you don’t have to worry NOW either, because you have family who will sort things for you, who speak the language, who understand the bureaucracy. We have no one. And so we worry NOW about what is the responsible and kind thing to do for our inheritors. The last thing on earth we want to do is put any burden on them. (Including possibly not being able to accept the inheritance and watching what would make a significant difference to their lives disappear into the French coffers.)
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Ah, that’s got to be annoying when you’re trying to enjoy a walk in the countryside!
Without sounding like a despicable person, I think it is a traite of some Basque.
Sometimes, for a change, I’ll go for a day out shopping or to a cafe in the neighbouring Béarn or Les Landes departments. I notice the lack of super loud voices as I’m going about my day.
My neighbours are, on one side Béarnais and the other side are Basque. Well, the Béarnais couple, I never hear them. The Basque couple on the other side, even with my windows and doors closed, and without my hearing aids in, I know when they’re at home.
I don’t know what it is, but Basque blokes seem to talk loud enough for the people in China to hear! Perhaps they have huge lungs or something. I don’t know.
Gosh, I sound like a bitch, sorry.
Having said that, I have found the Basque to be very warm and welcoming. Genuinely lovely people. And now I feel awful having slagged them off 
I have Basque friends and I do bring this up. They say the loud Basques are usually good singers. I don’t doubt it having watched a fair few live concerts in and around this area.
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Must be a Spanish influence as they seem to favour speech volumes which wouldn’t shame a Colour Sergeant indoors or out.
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I was having dinner on Monday in a big room full of Germans and at the other end of the room was one Italian at a table with his German business people, I very much enjoyed his fascinating conversation (nobody likes Mauro, Mauro is a stick in the mud, Mauro didn’t want to come on the trip…) and merely wished he’d been in another room as the volume might have been about right for me then.
Mauro probably heard every word sitting in Piacenza or wherever.
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Ha! I laughed far too loudly reading this… poor old Mauro probably heard me too.
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You might want to ask for expert advice. My understanding (and I just went through this last year as a beneficiary) is that feom parents to children, there is either no tax or a very large ‘exemption’ (like 100,000€ or more) and then the rate on the remainder is nothing like 60%.
This 60%, is for inheritance from non-immediate family. I unfortunately ran afoul of that because on my father’s death, everything passed to his wife, then she died 4 years later. As she is not legally a parent (or really any family), the State treated it as if she was a total stranger, or an aunt.
If you are passing in to your actual children, and it isn’t an enormous sum, you’d be fine. I was the only one of five heirs to have to pay any tax!
If you’d read my earlier comments you’d know we have no children.
Yup Spain=noise. Basque region is pretty much Spanish in a lot of ways.
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Round us (Lot et Garonne) restaurants are super quiet.
It’s been a shock going back to the UK - it’s the women and their girls’ nights out, the squealing and raucous laughter - not to mention the skirts and jackets that finish at crutch height! 
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How intriguing!.
I have plenty of Spanish friends and they are super loud and when in a group….oh my word!!…
I also find the Dutch and the US people very loud…and I understand ( tongue in cheek) is that they learn how to intonate and be loud very early doors when ordering a Big Mac in a drive through.
…Then there’s loud talking when at a concert….that annoys the crap out of me.
I really hate that. Also anything I notice eg eating, coughing, throat clearing, sniffing, nose-blowing, dropping things, scrabbling noisily in a bag or pockets, hair fiddling, stertorous breathing… aside from all that I’m super tolerant 
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Ours was the Indiana Jones theme tune (from Raiders of the Lost Ark). It was played through our headphones in a helicopter as we flew down the Las Vegas strip at night returning from the Grand Canyon where we got married.
As @SuePJ says there is a time and place for each period of your life. I would not wish to be in USA now.
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I had a lovely treat the day before yesterday, Elgar’s cello concerto then Mahler #7 both excellent and then on Monday I’m off to this
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Spem in Alium and Fantasia - sheer bliss!
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We don’t have children and we do have assets. But those we leave behind having to pay inheritance tax is not something I’m going to leave France for.
I intend to spend as much as I can enjoying my own life, and, if, by a misjudgement on my part, anything is left, this would be ‘unearned income’ to those we leave behind and quite frankly if they have to pay 60% tax on something they didn’t earn and contributed nothing to, so be it.
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So you then repented and bought an EV
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