Clé France

Sharon, you are so helpful. Thank you for taking the time to help me.

I hope to have the opportunity to buy with you in the future.

Kindest regards, Jennifer.

Cle France will guide YOU through the French Property Buying Process!

And as several of our clients say "Follow your heart and make the move"!

When it comes to French inheritance taxes, French property owners forget too often that they can limit the fiscal cost of the transmission of their French assets over their loved ones by careful estate planning.

Since 2006

A donor can gratify in a shared gift descendants of different degrees, for example his/her children and grandchildren.

With the agreement of the children, it is possible to transmit a French property to the grandchildren or to transmit the life interest of the property to the children and the bare ownership to the grandchildren.

This operation of transmitting a property or other assets over two generations will increase the number of Inheritance tax allowances applicable for the calculation of the gift taxes.

Example

Indeed, a parent can give to each of his/her children €100,000.00 and €31,865.00 to his/her grandchildren tax free.

For example, a couple with 2 children and 4 grandchildren can transmit tax free €654,920.00: (€100,000 X 2 children) + (€31,865 X 4 grandchildren) X 2 parents.

In the case of French property, this estate planning operation can be advantageous if the property was purchased by a suitable holding company such as an SCI (“Société Civile immobilière”). The SCI enables its members to transfer gradually their shares to their children or grandchildren. The French SCI is commonly used by families as a vehicle to organise the transmission of assets between members of a family. An additional benefit will be that each parent can transfer every 15 years some of his/her shares to his/her children and to his/her grandchildren with the same tax allowances mentioned above.

Furthermore because of the difficulty to sell the shares of an SCI to another person or a shareholder of an SCI, the shares of an SCI can be devalued by 10-20% justified by the insertion of an approval clause (“clause d’agrément”) in the “statuts” of the company. The value of the shares would be 10-20 % less than the value of the property reported in the number of shares.

Please note that this transgenerational inter vivos gift may also involve assets which have already been donated to children. It is then possible for the children to pass their assets to their own children in favourable tax conditions.

This article was written by Loic Raboteau, French Legal Advisor and director of French Legal Consulting.

Francophile legal Consulting can assist you with international property matters. For more information on this topic, please do not hesitate to contact Loic Raboteau, managing director by completing the form below. 

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A little more about FRANCOphile Legal Consulting Ltd.

The company was created in response to the need of legal experts for international private clients and businesses. People are no longer confined within their own country boundaries to work, create a business or purchase assets. National, international laws and new technology have enabled people and businesses to move and expand internationally, creating a demand to resolve cross-border issues.

We are a London-based legal consultancy company dedicated to addressing our clients’ international needs. Whether you are a private individual moving or investing in a foreign country, an entrepreneur, or a business willing to expand internationally, FRANCOphile Legal Consulting Ltd will cater your specific requirements and will look after your interests in the short and long term.

Benefiting from an extensive network of international lawyers, solicitors, accountants and financial advisors based in London and in several jurisdictions, FRANCOphile Legal Consulting Ltd is able to handle your interests in different countries around the world.

Our approach and solutions are tailored to our clients’ needs. We believe that our clients are unique and warrant distinctive service.

Our international coverage includes France, London, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Mauritius. If you would like to know more about us then fill out the contact form above and we will be right back to you.

For everything you need to know about French property visit www.clefrance.co.uk

Do You Feel Like A Million Dollars?

There are countless words and expressions that people use every day without realising how they do not make much sense.  

L’argot (slang) is an important part of every language, but one that is unfortunately hard to find in many textbooks.

Figuring out how exactly to say one million can be hard enough before trying to find a good equivalent to the expression, “to feel like a million dollars“:

Péter la forme 

Péter le feu 

Avoir une pêche d’enfer

Literal Translation: 

To fart the form 

To fart fire 

To have a hell peach

It can be surprising how different expressions are from one language to another and how useless knowing the literal translation is.

Like in the example expression, “To feel like a million dollars“, there is a lot of argot for l’argent (money). Sometimes it’s easy to understand, as in ten grand, but it can be bit harder to understand, par exemple, 50 bucks.

In French, everything became more confusing with l’introduction de l’euro. Some terms were more used when le franc was the currency, and while a few have held over into modern times, especially in older generations, many of them are less used now.

Mais d’abord, une petite histoire (but first a short story):

I was talking about le loyer (the rent) and how expensive it is à Paris when mon ami (my friend) used a word I had never heard before:

Ouais, ça peut coûter plus de 700 (sept-cents) balles par mois. 

700 balles ? 

Ouais…. Euh… 700 euros.

Yeah, it can cost more than 700 bucks a month. 

700 bucks? 

Yeah… Uh… 700 Euros.

I figured out that une balle meant a euro when referring to money, and soon had a similar conversation that led to me learning that le sou also refers to money in a general sense, but more often to les centimes (cents, money less than one euro).

Similar to how in the US bucks are used for dollars, and quid is used as l’argot for pounds in the UK, au Québec they have un mot différent (a different word) for their money - Piasse!

I first learned about this argot from a Bernard Adamus song, one of my favorite francophone musicians. He sings in a very thick accent québécois and uses a ton of argot that people in France would not understand, but it’s still a fun song that uses the unique Canadian word:

La question à cent piasses.

Blog submitted by: David at The French Property Network - Cle France.

This blog was originally posted on The French Language Blog pages.

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for passing on my details to your recommended contacts, two of them have contacted me, which is helpful and has saved me some time, much appreciated.

I wondered what your thoughts are on property surveys in France?

I'm torn between not wanting to spend a lot of money that I don't need to spend on unnecessary surveys, but at the same time I don't want to miss something that will come back and bite me, so to speak.

I'd appreciate any wisdom or advice you can throw my way, if you wouldn't mind, please.

Best wishes, Nicky.

Our preferred partner for all kinds of insurance, Ceri at Allianz helped Nicky with her insurance questions! 

AND we have put Nicky in touch with Nick Warner of "Wellesley House Surveying".

This is just 'all part of the service' that Cle France offer its clients. 

The pound has been on a rollercoaster of a ride against the Euro since the 10th of December 2015.

7 weeks later and the pound is still down 10 cents from the high period with not much indicating that we are going to see a significant rebound.

The loss fall from 1.42 down to 1.3150 at present is representing some very attractive selling Euro opportunities for those of you looking at repatriating funds back to the UK. Those of you though that are buying over in Europe may have agreed your properties when the price of buying the currency was stronger. If your completion is fast approaching and you are hoping for the rate to bounce back to the high 1.30’s in the near future then you may be in for a surprise. If you have recently agreed to buy a property then hopefully you have all budgeted at a worst case scenario as you always should do. If you can exchange your funds above that level at least you will be ahead of the game. 

Many clients have been locking in their Euros of late. The uncertainty of what is around the corner, in what has been one of the most volatile starts to a calendar year always makes clients question what if the rate does continue to fall. If you do not want to take that risk, forward buying your Euros is a wise way of knowing that you cannot lose out by a single penny regardless of what happens to the rates. And the best thing about it is that you do not need to settle the full amount of your funds straight away. 

The facts on why the pound has fallen:

Referendum:

Headline news at the moment. Scotland this week stated they would pull out of the union if this were to happen. The last Scottish referendum caused the pound to fall 4%. Could you imagine what would happen if we pulled out of Europe! The referendum may not be called until the end of 2017. That would be nearly two years of uncertainty for the British economy and the great British pound.

David Cameron may call it by the end of June or July but this is looking unlikely unless he negotiates exactly what he needs now.

Global uncertainty:

One of the world’s largest economies China is going through a slowdown. The growth has been one of the lowest for years now. This has sent shock waves through financial markets and the uncertainty of how things will pan out has led to comments from central banks that raising interest rates just now is not a wise move.

Oil Prices:

The price of a barrel of oil has fallen significantly over the last month. This does effect the UK economy as it is one of the main reasons inflation is so low. With the potential for Iran to flood the markets with even more oil the price could fall further. Inflation stays low and again it will be difficult for the UK to raise interest rates.

Inflation:  

The lower inflation gets or while it remains at these levels it effects the pound. We need inflation to rise to be able to hike interest rates. While interest rates are low the pound could continue to be sold off. Bank of England members just last week stated that all of the above gives the bank the opportunity to keep interest rates low for a longer period of time. 

The above to me means that it could be a while before the pound and more importantly against the Euro will significantly rise back to 1.40.

Trying to second guess the market can be very difficult and sometimes more is lost through indecision than a bad decision. Finding a currency specialist that can provide you with the information to help you decide when to buy the currency could be a great asset for you to have.

Do you want more information ?

So if you need to buy or sell sterling and would like to be kept up to date with all the latest data releases and exchange rate movements then feel free to contact myself Ben Amrany. If you are buying or selling a house in France we will make sure your monies are in the right place at the right time, we work hand in hand with you and Cle France.

For more information on the currency service I can provide please feel free to contact myself...

Ben Amrany from FC Exchange follow this link or phone and ask for myself and quote "Cle France" on 020 7989 0000.

You may contact me directly using this form (click here) with your requirement and I will explain the options that are available to you in getting the best exchange rate.  

Blog submitted by: Ben for The French Property Network - Cle France. 

For everything you need to know about French property visit www.clefrance.co.uk