IT is difficult to know just how many people head back to their home country with their dream of a life in France in tatters.
Figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics say that in 2003 over 190,000 people left Britain, a record figure, but in the same period more than 105,000 returned.
Extracting the number of people who came back to the UK after finishing a work posting for example, is difficult to do.
But within these figures there are sure to be some stories of people who looked to start afresh, but whose best-laid plans came to fail.
Often problems can arise due to culture shock, especially if a family’s new home is in the middle of the countryside and the nearest town is a 30-minute drive away.
Instead of just popping out to the shops, military style plans are laid out to ensure everything that is needed is bought in one campaign to the supermarket.
Then there is the problem of settling in the children, not only into a new school but the very different way that youngsters are expected to behave in France.
And for many couples this will be the first time that they have lived within each other’s company, around the clock, for a long time.
Learning the language is a great help but it often occurs that only one side of the partnership has bothered, the other is forced to tag along wondering what has been said.
Although many people will see these problems as challenges to be dealt with, others may just wonder if all the effort is worth it and start checking out the cost of a removal van.
So over to you, what are the problems that you’ve faced in moving to France? And most importantly how have you dealt with them?
Please leave your comments below.
Comments
5 responses to “French dream in tatters”
“Figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics say that in 2003 over 190,000 people left Britain, a record figure, but in the same period more than 105,000 returned.”
Should be:
IN = 513,000
OUT = 362,000
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=260
Hi
The figures highlighted in the article are for British citizens, which I failed to mention. I’m still very interested to find out how people have dealt with the problems of life in France.
Regards
Craig
Hello
I live in the south west of france and im in the middle of selling my house and to my surprise all the people i thought were my friends and who would help me with the process have now all gone very quite they work in the estate agency buisness so you would expect them to no. at first they all said i will not have to pay capital gains tax because im a resident living and working in france now they say nothing as i have found out i may have to this is my main home do you no if i have to pay c.g.t thank you
Dear Ian,
I can confirm that if the property is your main residence and you are resident in France for tax purposes, profit made on the re-sale is exempt from French Capital Gains Tax (Article 150 C CGI), provided that you have lived in the said property since it was built, or for a minimum period of 5 years.
Regards,
Fabien Cordiez
Advocate & Solicitor
http://www.solicitor.fr
Hi there,
We moved to France in 2003 having had a new bungalow built for us. However, we now wish to move back to the UK. CGT is not payable as it is our main residence but VAT is payable on the whole amount we sell the property for not just on the profit gained. We are forced therefore to stay here for five years before we can afford to sell up when no Tax is payable at all. Our experiences in France have been mixed,without fluency in the French language you are at a disadvantage from the start.Anyone can go into a cafe and order a cafe & croissant but when you get a major problem it becomes a completely different ball game and unless you have some friends who know French Law and speak French fluently you will have to revert as we did to using a french Solicitor who does not come cheap. Customer after sales service in France is almost none existant as they know if you threaten them with court action it will take months, sometimes years to get the case to court and is just not worth the effort. I could go on but space procludes this. Know the language and law and things can be OK otherwise forget it!!!!!