Thanks George1. So if we sell our home in France after moving back to the UK to rent, would we then be liable for CGT on a home that cost 230,000€ and might now sell for 250,000€ even though we have receipts for improvements costing far more than 20,000€? Would be happy to get advice, but just trying to understand the basics.
I’m 70 and both me and my husband have signed up with Dignitas, Really good idea to support them over the years, to continue their good work, for us and others as well with a small yearly membership fee. No point waiting for UK to change the law, never going to happen in my lifetime. Anyone else a member?
Yes, absolutely. I fully intended to contribute more sensibly earlier, but some contributors really get my goat 
Anyway, what comes out of these kind of discussions is that we all have differing situations &/or needs. No one can make a sweeping statement about their plans being better or worse than someone else’s, as there will always be variables.
My own situation is similar to the one which @tim17 went through i.e. being faced with leaving my three step children with a 60% tax bill if I’m the last to croak.
We have talked this problem around & around. This leads to occasional flurries of looking on line at UK property (which is very depressing as we simply cannot muster enough capital to buy anywhere we’d want to be) or considering relocating here in France & renting, as we could put the vast majority of our cash into AVs that pay out tax free to whoever you allocate them to.
I try hard not to feel like the last 20+ years has been a waste or a mistake - it very much hasn’t; we live a great location, have enjoyed turning a barn into a large house, France gave me a good living for 15 of those years, & I now have an FR pension as a consequence. Sadly, none of that helps keep up with the insanity of the UK property market.
I do now find myself getting a bit down when contemplating further works on our house here as that feeling of maybe selling up eats away at my enthusiasm.
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Sorry to hear this Badger - and you are so far from alone, which is why I’ve told our story - whether anyone contemplating coming here will read this thread I don’t know, but it is at the beginning of this adventure in France we have the chance to “future proof” our old age. We came at 60 and cannot believe where the last 18 years have gone and find it hard to accept we may now have fewer than those 18 years in front of us.
For those who come younger and start a family here, their path is likely to be different, but coming out at 60 there is a real possibility at the end one/other/both will go back and face the real challenge of not being able to buy somewhere where they want to be.
Coming out, most of us will have done well out of our UK houses and THAT IS THE MOMENT to say I will not spend all this money in France. I will keep back a modest amount for a flat (or something) somewhere I would like to live. As you say, property prices in the UK are insane and will continue to be so - that property will be a future asset in a way that a French property never will. I think I’ve said elsewhere, we bought our place for about 260,000€. We have sunk over 150,000€ in it to bring it up to scratch. Current valuation after 18 years - about 280,000€
I hope people planning to come out are reading this. We never know what the future will hold and (as I’ve already said) having choices late in life is so important. We have so many friends who now do not know what to do because they are stuck. I think for some, it is a matter of waiting until one half dies and then the other half is freed up to make their own life as best they can.
NB: I know of several women who late in life have gone on to start a new relationship because they cannot bear to be alone.
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No UK CGT if you’ve always lived in it, and the gap between moving out and selling - when UK resident - is quick (ie less than 9 months)…There is a really helpful, simple interactive checker here on HMRC’s site.
IF things take longer to sell, which is unfortunately possible, then there might be some limited exposure to cgt. Bear in mind that the UK doesn’t care what you paid in euros or sell in euros, it would want you to convert the buying and selling prices using the £/€ exchange rates prevailing at purchase and sale dates. The only reason for mentioning this, is that I’ve seen losses/no gains in one currency turn into gains in another currency, given how much exchange rates have moved over the decades. I think though you’ll be absolutely fine if you sell quickly.
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We bought our first house in 2004 at 1.56, and moved to this one in 2021 when it was 1.16. 
(although no sterling involved in the second one obviously).
Thanks for the explanation, it is really helpful.
There are limitations Badger, especially after age 70. Check carefully.
Yes sorry to read this too…
Mine too. Which has pushed us into doing things earlier than we would otherwise. But not returning to UK.
We do what we can/want to for the next generations at the moment. But life is for living and that’s what we will do so if they end up with little because of the IHT then so be it. We have no intention of being miserable for next 20+ years to provide them a better safety net.
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Yes, I’m aware. I have a bit under 5 years to go to take out some AVs. My wife is already past that point.
None of our kids/step kids expect to get a single cent from us (& they are all fairly well set up in life already), but we do want to avoid them having to deal with maybe having to pay a 60% upfront tax bill on property that might take a while to sell. As you know the fisc won’t wait for their share of it.
This problem goes away if I croak first.
What really winds me up is the treatment of step children. In some cases the connection may not be particularly close but in mine they’ve been my step children since we got married in 1992, & we lived together for 4 years before that.
Yup, it sucks. I have french friends who have not got married for this reason despite being together 30 years or more.
OTOH I posted a few years ago about how on a sunny Sunday afternoon in 1982, I suddenly found myself trapped in a burning tube train, filling with smoke in a tunnel 200 feet below Tottenham Ct Rd.
Never mind the Spanish Inquisition, it’s not what you expect on a 30p Tube ride…
It wasn’t very nice, and at the time I thought what a crap way to die.
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I’m very sorry to read of the truly painful situation you, your wife and step children find themselves in. An awful predicament.
Given all that you now know about French inheritance laws, is there anything -realistically - you could have done differently (ie with total hindsight) if you were able to wind the clock back all those years? I wonder if you would still have moved to France etc anyway? Frankly I bet many people would still have moved.
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Purely FYI, we had asked our notaire about exactly this situation (on behalf of married friends who were thinking of moving to France, with adult stepchildren). She paused and said that in her experience, people do wills leaving everything to their other half, but with a ‘backstop’ leaving the bulk/all of their estate to French charities, totally avoiding all French IHT. Perhaps not for everyone, but useful as a guide from a notaire.
French neighbours did just that some 15 or so years ago. sold up their home and land… went into a rental property (downsized but nearer to their son). They wanted to have cash to do as they pleased… 
We wouldn’t have got married! We only got married after 25 years together to make French administration easier! Our first property w e bought en tontine, but when we moved in 2008 we popped into a registry office. Stupid.
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Yes, with total hindsight we’d have put the house in just my wife’s name, but given myself the usufruit so that if she dies first the kids get the house but I get to live in it. We can still achieve that by my gifting my half to her now, but that comes at a cost, albeit small.
When we bought the property it costed (in property terms) the equivalent of loose change. We didn’t consider it’s likely future value, or about passing it on. It was bought on a post 11/09/2001 whim (many people did odd things that autumn) & we used it as a bolt hole from some stressful aspects of our lifes for nearly three years before actually moving properly, & then selling our UK house two years after that.
Of course, if I end up on my own in a property owned by my stepchildren that’s all good until/if I want to move but don’t have the capital. On the up side one of my stepchildren is married to a French citizen & it’s possible that one day they might want to ditch living in London (where they met, married & still live) for the calm of rural Normandie. They could afford to buy out the other two.
As I outlined above, we kind of drifted here so it didn’t feel like a decision.
Yes, that certainly works, & the step kids avoid a lot of hassle, but end up with nothing.
For me it’s not the principal of IHT that is the problem, it’s the unfairness.
Some natural children may have nothing to do with their parent’s lives but inherit with generous abattements, whereas my step children have always been close & have also produced 5 grandkids to enrich my/our life. It feels so wrong (but I know whinging about it here won’t change anything).
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Marriage works for some couples and not for others
One French couple, lived together lovingly for 25 years but he refused to marry her due to the aftermath of his disastrous first marriage.
Even when he knew he was near death, he couldn’t bring himself to tie the knot… (and I know he loved the lady very dearly)…
as a result, when he died, his true love had to get out of the property and had no claim on anything, no support, no nuffink.
Thankfully, the commune rallied round so she wasn’t sleeping under a hedge… but his stubbornness did make a sad time even worse for her.
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That’s where my OH always insists I’ll end up 