# Post-Brexit move to France - what to consider?



## Newbeginnings?

Bevdeforges said:


> And I'll get things started here, since I'm very often the one asking the question of newcomers.
> 
> Let's assume for this thread that we're talking exclusively post-Brexit (i.e. that British citizens will need a long-stay visa and all the related registrations that go with that).
> 
> The first thing you need to ask yourself is Why France? Wouldn't it be easier to move somewhere within your home or current country and avoid the immigration hassles, plus surround yourself with familiar things? (Especially for those in retirement.)
> 
> And also why France? And not Spain, Italy, Germany or the Netherlands?
> 
> Are you looking for someplace "close" to home so you can visit (and be visited by) friends and family? Consider the annoyances of having to change sides of the road (if you're planning on driving) or the vagaries of "seasonal" airport or train schedules. (Post-Brexit there is no guarantee that driving licenses will be exchangeable on the same basis that they are currently. Though that's a one-time issue.)
> 
> OK, I'll yield to some of the other expat "experts" here.
> Cheers,
> Bev


Hi Bev,
Sorry I am going to sound completely dense and I apologies. I have read some of the threads relating to moving to France but I am as confused as ever. Hubby and I were planning to sell our property in the UK to finance purchasing a property and for living expenses in France. I do admit to being totally clueless and maybe looking at this through rose tinted specs.
Therefore any help/advice would be much appreciated.


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## Bevdeforges

Hi Newbeginnings - I'm going to copy your post over to the main query part of the forum. This thread is more of a "sticky" post to allow folks to post general information rather than response to specific queries.

Oops - had to just move this to form a new thread. (Still learning some of the commands here since we changed the format of the forums.)


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## Bevdeforges

Anyhow, now to reply to your request for help and advice.

The biggest issue that is going to confront you in all this is that of visas. It has been a long time since the Brits have had to worry about getting a visa if they want to up sticks and just head over to France (or anywhere else in the EU or EEA) to live. The key thing is that to get a long-stay visa (i.e. to allow you to settle for more than 90 days) you need to have a reason for wanting to come to France. It's this reason that determines the terms under which you can make the move.

Now, if either you or Hubby has an EU nationality, you won't need the visas, but there will be other terms you need to abide by to become resident here.

This is the official site for information about visas for France: France-visas.gouv.fr | The official website for visa application to France

Take a look at the site to see what applies to you in your situation and then start firing away with your questions.


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## Crabtree

And you are going to have to have an"income" not just a lump sum for "living expenses"(which are going to be much higher than you think) This income is generally accepted to be the French minimum wage (SMIC) which is about €1600 per month pre tax .And do not forget that for the first five years you are going to have to show your financial assets every year in order to get/renew your Carte de Sejour(CDS)
So you need to apply for a Visa in order to get into France as a long term resident and then you need to apply for a CDS in order to be able to stay and there are hoops at every stage unfortunately


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## Bevdeforges

OK - folks will note that I have moved all the extraneous discussion of immigration (to or from the UK) to the Bistro. Could we now help Newbeginnings? with some of the information s/he may need for actually moving to France? Thank you.


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## SPGW

Ah, now I’m confused : so it isn’t actually that difficult to get the necessary visa to enable you to « get up and go » (sell up and settle in France) if you want to. Settling somewhere else is always a challenge. Obviously freedom of EU movement was lost with brexit, but that didn’t make it impossible to move.
As for oligarchs’ properties - agree with above comments - indefensible and shameful for the uk.


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## Crabtree

OK as Newbeginnings does not know what she does not know so here a few things to consider and perhaps if she is unclear about any of them then she can ask
Health Care-S1- private health policy for the Visa- how to get a Carte Vitale
Tax- Understanding your tax liability in France and how the Anglo French tax agreement may affect what income is taxed where-local taxes on the home etc
Cars-whether to bring one over and re register it or to buy locally/insurance MOT etc
House purchase procedures/estate agents/ notaires and the joys of a Fosse Septique
Integration fitting in and making friends
To do up a house or buy a turn key?
Utilities?
Bank accounts moving money etc

Just a few things off the top of my head to get you started


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## EuroTrash

We seem to be assuming NB and hubby are retired. Has this been said? Might they need/want to work? I would have thought status is the first thing to clarify.
Although the poor soul's probably run for cover by now...
.


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## Bevdeforges

The one key thing I would note here (though ET has beat me to it) is that for visa purposes the OP needs to determine their status. If they are planning on working while here, they'll need a visa that will give them work privileges. If they are planning to retire to France, they'll likely need more than the proceeds from selling their house in the UK. The usual requirement for retirees is to have a pension (at least one of the partners). But all of this is explained (to a certain extent) on the French government's website on visas. After NB has read through that information, perhaps they'll be back with specific questions.


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## Reeve

Firstly thanks for all the useful information! 

We lived in France and had - unfortunately - to return to the uk for family reasons, then got stuck because of Brexit and couldn't get back before the deadline because of the Pandemic, so are really struggling with the whole Visa aplication/selling uk house process. 

It's the Catch 22 which is currently bothering us, and we wondered if anyone had any suggestions?

Where do you start??? Not knowing how long the visa application process could take + not knowing whether our house sale in the UK will go through, and if it does, when? + not having an address in France, and not being able to book a rental to provide an address without knowing dates - we are just going round in circles. What do we do first???

Would it be possible to break the cycle if someone were to offer us an address to put on the application (we wouldn't need to actually stay there) so we could actually start the process - then when we know dates of house sale and arrival of visa we could arrange a proper rental (and change the address on the Visa application) until we found a house to buy? Is it possible to change the address on a visa application? 
We have tried endlessly to contact the TLS visa companies uin the UK but they are worse than useless. And it seems we need to make two trips to the centre - the second time just to collect our passports as they won't post them back. That's 5 hours by car each way or £500 by train. Sorry to rant, but there is just no-one to ask for clarification (and yes, I have already tried the French consulate - who can't comment on individual cases!!)

Also, we still have an active S1; we never had top-up health insurance. Would we still need proof of top-up health insurance in France for our visa applications?

Thank you for reading this - I really hope some good samaritan can lead us out of this muddle!!!


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## tardigrade

Others can tell you about the visa process and legalities of using a phony address in France but my 2 cents is purchase a property you can see yourself maintaining in 5 - 10 - 15 years or am willing and able to pay someone to maintain it... Things can get to much and then the city, town or village will come in and maintain it at a considerable cost to you.


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## Bevdeforges

TLS is there to process your dossier before passing it on to the Consulate for the final approvals and steps. (Trust me on this - it works out much better this way than to leave the individual consulates to handle the initial processing, each in their own manner.)

Do not use a trumped up address as your accommodation on arrival. You need to give them an address where you can be reliably contacted by postal mail for whatever registrations or other administrative obligations you have in the first couple of months. It's not just a matter of providing an address. And while you can change the address later (say, when you find a longer term rental for the first year or so) you need to have originally given them a place where your name is on the mailbox and you can forward your mail from that address to your more permanent home once you organize it.

It is really no different than what a few thousand expats from the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand have done - and from a much greater distance. You don't require top-up insurance, but in your situation I would check and see if you are still listed as covered on CPAM, using your original sécu number (that won't change, S1 or not). 


Reeve said:


> And it seems we need to make two trips to the centre - the second time just to collect our passports as they won't post them back. That's 5 hours by car each way or £500 by train.


That's how it was in the US - you had to apply through the consulate that was responsible for the area in which you lived, even if the consulate for the neighboring area was closer. I guess there are only the 3 centers in the UK if you're headed for France. 

And when I first came to live in Europe, I wasn't able to sell my house in the US before I had to move. So I left things with the estate agency, dealt with her by phone from Germany and wound up having to get documents notarized (in the US sense - at the US Embassy in Germany) in order for the transaction to ultimately go through. Yes, it's something of a hassle, but take your time and ask questions of the various professionals who may be able to help.


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## EuroTrash

Reeve said:


> We lived in France and had - unfortunately - to return to the uk for family reasons, then got stuck because of Brexit and couldn't get back before the deadline because of the Pandemic, so are really struggling with the whole Visa aplication/selling uk house process.


You are aware aren't you that IF you had qualified for permanent residency rights in France before you left (i.e. you had lived there for at least 5 years continuous), and IF you stayed outside of France for less than 5 years, then your rights would still be protected under the WA. It wasn't necessary to be physically present in France immediately before the deadline if you met the above 2 conditions, ie you had lived in France for at least 5 years, then you left you but returned within 5 years.

Re the S1, as Bev says you should probably check to make sure that your rights are still active. CPAM seem to do regular sweeps to check that they haven't got anybody on their books that has left France but may have forgotten to notify CPAM. If they'd written to you at the address they have on file for you and asked for justificatifs to prove you were still resident, would you have received the letter? (Just saying that 'cos that's what happened to me, and the letter finally caught up with me about a year later LOL. In my case it had all got superseded by then because I'd started a job so I was covered again through that, but if I hadn't, I would have had to prove residence all over again before they reinstated my rights. Your cover doesn't necessarily seem to stay good for ever.)


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## Reeve

Thanks for your comments. I wasn't suggesting put in a fraudulent address, just one to get the application started, ad it's impossible to book a rental until you know the dates of travel.
Regarding our right of residency; still can't ifnd out whether or not we need a visa when returning.


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## EuroTrash

Reeve said:


> Regarding our right of residency; still can't ifnd out whether or not we need a visa when returning.


If you don't currently hold a valid a carte de séjour then without a visa you are limited to visiting for 90/180 days.
It shouldn't be too hard to know whether in theory you were protected under the WA or not, the conditions are pretty black and white. If you'd lived legally in France for at least 5 consecutive years before you left, you would have qualified for permanent residency rights. If you qualified for permanent residency rights before you left, then under the withdrawal agreement you are allowed an absence of up to 5 years without losing those rights. There aren't many exceptions to that, apart from cross border workers and the usual special cases.
But at this stage you would need to make a special application to the prefecture, because in order to protect any rights you had you should have applied via the special online portal before last July (I think the deadline was).


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## GraceS

Reeve said:


> We lived in France and had - unfortunately - to return to the uk for family reasons, then got stuck because of Brexit and couldn't get back before the deadline because of the Pandemic, so are really struggling with the whole Visa aplication/selling uk house process.
> 
> It's the Catch 22 which is currently bothering us, and we wondered if anyone had any suggestions?
> 
> Where do you start??? Not knowing how long the visa application process could take + not knowing whether our house sale in the UK will go through, and if it does, when? + not having an address in France, and not being able to book a rental to provide an address without knowing dates - we are just going round in circles. What do we do first???


Hi Reeve--

I think you'll be able to handle this best if you consider it as not just one process ("visa application/selling uk house process"), but rather as several different processes, which will overlap in time, but which will be almost impossible to line up perfectly. The best solution may be to allow for some time gaps and use them productively. Here is one example:

Process 1: Find out if you already have permanent residency. If you have this, you won't need to go thru the visa process. This question is so important that it's worth hiring an expert for a definitive answer. There must be quite a few attorneys/consultants in France who have developed an expertise in Brexit related questions.

Process 2: Sell your house. If you do need a long stay French visa, maybe ask the seller for a longer closing, or even to rent the house back from them for a month or two. (not sure how it works in the UK, but this is definitely possible in the US, especially in a hot real estate market)

Process 3: Apply for a French visa (assuming a "no" answer to process 1). Where would you live while doing this? Maybe in your own home, if you've done an extended closing or rent back. Maybe with family, friends, or a rental in the UK. Remember, that you could also spend some of this time visiting France on a tourist visa, while you select a place for the longer term rental that you'll list on your visa. Of course, you'll have to go back to England for the visa interview and to pick up your visa. 

Bottom line: there are a lot of moving pieces in your scenario. Start with most essential question, and give yourself time to make good decisions.


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## Bevdeforges

Let me add just a couple of caveats to what GraceS has suggested. I agree with her that the various processes are not separate and distinct, and can't be planned for on a strictly consecutive basis - i.e. first do this, then that, then the other thing. What you need to plan for is a "fall back" situation - like, say your house sells quickly and the buyer wants to close quickly. So, where would you live if you haven't yet applied for or received your visa? Take a look at your options and assess the pluses and minuses of each sitation.

But, specific to GraceS's suggestions:
1. Be careful about "lawyering up" in any administrative situation in France. The French don't tend to turn to lawyers for what should be fairly routine processes here. Hiring "legal advice" may complicate things more than they help. (Has something to do with the differences between the "anglo-saxon" legal system and the French legal system.)

2. Talk to someone in the UK about what your options may be if your house is on the market but not sold by the time you leave for France. The estate agent may be able to suggest something like renting it out on a short-term basis or some other solution - but you won't know until you ask. (Goes with the notion that the various tasks are not consecutive but more simultaneous.) 

In most situations, visa or not, you just pick a date to travel and then work your other requirements around that. Though first it pays to assess what your options are - do you need a visa or not? what are the risks of moving before your UK house sells? etc. etc.


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## EuroTrash

GraceS said:


> This question is so important that it's worth hiring an expert for a definitive answer. There must be quite a few attorneys/consultants in France who have developed an expertise in Brexit related questions.


I am not sure this is the case because there were numerous organisations set up specifically to assist UK nationals living in the EU - as I recall the British Embassy offered free outreach support and there were centres all up and down France, funded by the UK government, who employed full time staff to handle queries and iron out problems relating to residency. These organisations worked closely with the prefectures and there was never any need for any Brit in France to pay a consultant. Unfortunately they've been disbanded now.
But quite honestly, the Withdrawal Agreement is designed to be as simple as possible, so that the average person can understand the bits that apply to them. It's available online and the paragraph on residency rights is relatively short and sweet. There are also several pages of FAQs on the EC website that I found helpful.
The first question for you is, What did you give the French tax office as the exact date when you left France? Will it have been more than 5 years between the date you left and the date you return, or less?
If less, the second question would be, Are you able to justify 5 years' continuous residence in France? For instance do you have 5 years avis d'impots etc?
If the answer to the first question is Less than five years and the answer to the second question is Yes, it is definitely worth getting in touch with your prefecture. I don't know whether they're legally obliged to consider new applications at this late stage, I think officially the applicant must have a good reason why they were unable to apply before the deadline, but I think there is a good chance they would at least consider it, especially if you can make some sort of a case about illness in the family and covid and severe stress etc. I guess there aren't any fixed "rules" for the prefecture to follow, since the rule was that WA beneficiaries had to meet the application deadline and had to be in possession of their CdS by 1.1.22 at the latest. Which I guess gives the prefectures discretion..
However if the answer to the first question is More, and/or the answer to the second question is No, I don't see any point pursuing this route since you wouldn't be covered by the WA.


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## GraceS

Bev and ET: thanks for these clarifications regarding the WA.

My mistake was assuming that the situation would be similar to a US citizen who had a tricky residency question. Here in Paris, at least, there are some very popular consultants, such as Jean Taquet, who help with these kinds of issues. From the folks I know who have used them, the consultants mostly just give advice, but they sometimes also accompany the client to administrative appointments, where they seem to have very good relationships with administrators.


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## Bevdeforges

Actually, you're quite right to point out the similarities between a post-Brexit move to France for a Brit and a normal old move to France for almost anyone from outside the EU. Generally speaking those relocation consultants can be extremely pricey and very often their services are part of a "relocation package" offered by an international employer moving an executive and family to France. But the services include help in finding a place to live, help in opening bank accounts, utility accounts and finding schools for the children. But if an employer is sponsoring the transfer, the issue of a visa isn't really part of the picture.

Some retirees make use of relocation consultants, but the price can be a big consideration, especially if someone is planning on living off the proceeds of a home sale. I suppose in that instance, it may well be necessary to hold off on applying for a visa until after the house is sold in order to "prove" your financial resources - however it can be very tough to get a visa based on a fixed pool of funds like that. In general, they don't like to see you spending down your life's savings on living expenses - cause what happens when that is all gone? And then if you've sold your house and get turned down for the visa, you may have a problem on your hands.


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