Americans in France
 

My friend, a Briton, has invited me to visit him at his small estate in SE France, near Bordeaux. Hopefully i can go and spend a few weeks, months...who knows. He owns his place and comes and goes from there as he pleases. Now i wonder if i too can buy a property in France but since i hold an American passport the rules for me may indeed be different. Can anyone on this forum offer advice on land ownership and the right to live in France for USA citizens.. Thanks.

As far as I'm aware the laws for buying property are the same for Americans as for Frenchmen or Hottentots.

Similarly, the border control laws for Americans with French property are the same as for Americans without or for Japanese or Malaysians: 90 days in Schengen then and off you pop till 6 months later.

Your British friend can come and go as he pleases because Britons - be they never so rich or poor - have unrestricted right of entry to France. Without a passport issued by another EU or EEA country, other foreigners don't.

It's advisable to check French inheritance laws too, even if you are not a French resident.

To buy property in France we always say to people "just bring money"

To live here involves a lot more, generally being able to prove that you have enough money to support yourself, and health insurance. If you have those, then you either abide by Schengen, which allows 90 days out of 180, or investigate the visa process.

If money is not an issue, France will be happy to give you a resident visa. When my parents retired to France (temporarily -- 9 years -- until the dollar collapsed at the end of the 1970's), all they had to prove was that they had sufficient income and adequate health coverage and swear that they would not work in France.

Health coverage can often be the problem for a lot of people. My father was retired military, and my parents settled in northeastern France, so my parents were able to show that they could go to an American base in nearby Germany for free unlimited health care if necessary.

For minor little things (shhhh, don't tell anybody), they could piggyback on their village neighbors and get medicine and a doctor's visit simply by paying the small fee instead of their neighbor, but registered on the neighbor's social security account. Country doctors are extremely accommodating in France.

I bought a house in France 20 years ago and still own it. I do have EU citizenship as well as American, but that never even came up during the house-purchasing process. Of course you can buy a house there. France will happily take your money.

Living there is another matter entirely unless you are an EU citizen. You get 90 days at a time until you can manage to get a long-term visa or a carte de résidence.

And please do speak French.

Plenty of good advice here.

I will just add a cautionary word regarding the country doctors and piggybacking on social security. I have not found this to be the case at all! I live just outside Paris and am fully paid up regarding social security. However, I work in an international school, and we take our students to trips to small places in the back end of the south of France yearly. These students are frequently uninsured (as they are not going to be in France for too long and their parents are rich anyway) and we have always found that whenever any of them has required medical attention, there is no way and no how they are piggybacking on our social security. Please do NOT rely on this possibility.

I'm guessing you've also found that when a visiting student requires medical care, it costs very little. I've taken student groups to France as well, and if someone needed medical care we just paid a small amount out of pocket. In some cases, the student got reimbursement from an American insurance company The piggybacking scheme is intended, I believe, not for visitors but rather foreign residents (and yes, it happens in my village in France, though it's not widely discussed).

You can certainly by a property but you can;t live there for more than 90 days at a time (and then 90 days out) unless you get a long-term visa. This is time-consuming and you will have to prove you have substantial assets and full medical coverage (Medicare does not cover you outside the US) plus meet a number of other requirements to qualify. Getting the visa is a process that takes months - but probably not as long as buying a property.

In any case, there is no way I would ever buy a property in a foreign country without spending significant time in the place you plan on buying.

And yes, you will need to learn French.

<i>
Americans in France
Posted by: jobin on Jan 24, 13 at 4:36am
My friend, a Briton, has invited me to visit him at his small estate in SE France, near Bordeaux.</i>

First, check your compass.

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. My takeaway is that I can buy whatever I want but I can only enjoy it 6 months a year until I get officially resided. Check?

Not sure what you mean by "piggybacking on social security" and that some foreign nationals do it.

To participate in France's health care system you have to be working in France and contributing through tax or covered under a reciprocal program/agreement between France and your home country.

For example, if you move to France from the UK and have been making contributions to the UK system for 2 or 3 previous years, you will be covered in France for a maximum of two years, at which time you are presumed to be working and contributing in France. The UK support goes away.

Another example is the reciprocal France-UK program which covers retirees who have met the minimum social contributions in their home country, more than 30 years.

Certainly non-working spouses and children benefit or ""piggyback from their spouses' coverage but for everyone else it's pay as you go, residency only doesn't put you "in the system." You would never be turned away from emergency care but doctors, pharmacists are paid at point of service. They will give your detailed receipts which can be submitted to a US insurer, for example.

IMO, any other piggy-backing (using someone else's carte vitale?) is cheating.

"IMO, any other piggy-backing (using someone else's carte vitale?) is cheating."

I fully agree.

StCirq: it depends what they've done to themselves and how well covered their parents are :p As mentioned, many of the parents are rich and uninsured, so it doesn't bother them, but bothers us, as we are the ones paying upfront for their kids' medical costs while on school trips! Things like doctor's appointments are of course inexpensive, but I ended up paying nearly €100 for a specialist bandage for a kid last year. Plus, another kid's hospital bill ran to thousands of euros and had to be paid upfront by the headmistress before the parents paid her back. Not a nice experience by any account!

Obviously piggybacking is cheating -- I never said it wasn't. But I would have to say that a certain amount of cheating is totally normal in France even if it is morally reprehensible. At the same time, keeping people healthy with a small amount of cheating is probably better than allowing a major medical problem to develop, in which case the French system will pay for care anyway if it is an emergency.

<<My takeaway is that I can buy whatever I want but I can only enjoy it 6 months a year until I get officially resided. Check?>>

Not 6 months. 90 days. Exactly 90 days.

And yes, piggybacking is cheating, but it happens, maybe especially in small rural communities where there are expats. I've never done it - don't need to, as I have my own insurance and am an EU citizen - but I do know a couple of holiday home owners who have done this. I don't approve, but I wouldn't rat them out, either.

bdsbeautyblog, I never traveled with kids who were uninsured (private school, rich parents), and never had anything more serious than a few stitches to deal with, so it was usually a quick trip to the ER or a doctor's office and about a $25 fee (at the time...in francs).

We found a home in France last June. The purchase process, from "Compromis de vente," a purchase and sale agreement is the closest US analogy, to completion took over 4 months because of the complexity of the mortgage system. But, there were never significant impediments, despite my limited French.

I recommend that after you spend some time in the area where you think you wish to buy, to engage a property finder. We found ours through frenchentree.com, but there are many who advertise in the various magazines and websites. This person is a property broker who will work for you and gets a fee of about 2.5% of the purchase price from the purchaser only. Because real estate agents in France can only show their own listings and about half the properties listed are held by notaires, having a property finder is the most efficient way of seeing all the properties in a given area that match your criteria. Incidentally, the second property our finder showed us met nearly none or our original criteria and was perfect for us.

It is also helpful to have a bi-lingual mortgage broker. (Our broker more than earned his fixed fee of 1,000 Euro.) The system in France is very different from that in the US and you will literally have to shed a little blood to get a mortgage. (They insist on life insurance to secure the mortgage and you will have to give blood for the lab tests.) We were able to secure a good price on our house in part because we had pre-approval for a mortgage and could make a clean bid on the house.

Finally, it was very helpful to establish a French bank account. That will allow you to make payments in Euros electronically, a system much favored by the French. Here is a link to an article about our experience of purchasing. I apologize for the prolixity, both of this post and the article.
http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-wemad...e.asp?ID=48161

Interesting, Jeff. Things seem to have changed a lot since I bought my house in the Dordogne. Getting a mortgage was a piece of cake...no blood involved. And it took exactly two weeks from the time I made the promesse de vente to own the house. The deed was delivered to me by a woman carrying it in a market basket.

Was discussing the "piggyback" issue with my husband and he thinks I over-reacted because we have a friend who constantly boasts about "working the system."

He also reminded me that we pay for wood delivery, heavy yard work, etc. without asking for a devis (estimate) or a receipt.

Bit hypocritical, sorry.

<<He also reminded me that we pay for wood delivery, heavy yard work, etc. without asking for a devis (estimate) or a receipt>>

Gosh, I do that too! Well, not really expensive stuff, but still...

<i>Well, not really expensive stuff, but still...</i>

If I have a gardener/yard maintenance person cut the grass around my house, it would cost 400€. I have someone do it for much less. The same thing happened when I needed to have trees cut down.

On the other hand, I do not understand the idea of trying to piggy-back on a neighbor's French Social Security medical coverage. Doctors are cheap in France--not even 30€ for an orthopedic surgeon's consultation (in our experience in Périgueux). I would think that any U.S. resident would find that a bargain willingly paid for, even if not reimbursed (we were).

I certainly would not imagine the idea of owning property in France without having a French bank account. There are so many annual or monthly fees (taxes, utilities...) that it would be an incredible hassle not to have a local account to deal with such things.

<i>that it would be an incredible hassle not to have a local account to deal with such things.</i>

We have automatic payment for utilities, but pay our taxes by mail. No problem, but we do have a bank account. It could be done by using a company like http://www.xe.com/xetrade/ which in my experience charges 2% to 3% above the daily rate with no charges from the banks on either side of the transfer.

Michael,

Agree the physicians' fees are very, very reasonable, starting with 23€ for a GP appointment, bit more for consultants (Haute Garonne). Where I lived in the Midwest, a GP appointment would be around $125-150.

Although we moan about Crédit Agricole, as K wrote, a checking account is so convenient for all standing charges. We pay electric, phone, 3 taxes, 3 insurance premiums, all by monthly debit. Really helps us manage our budget. We also keep accounts in the US but use them less and less.

Certainly true Bordeaux in the SW not SE, but so close on the keyboard! And sorry, no french speaking here and my friend says really not needed in his village as some many Brits live there now. He says the pubs fairly crawl with ManU and QPR fans. Sounds like i'll need to bring lots of cash dollars to smooth my path. I really look forward to a nice slow bike jaunt through the vineyards of the region. Samples too. But i'm not much for white bread, which i gather is the daily fare. Do love witloof however.

Oh certainly you do not need to speak French to live here - unless you want to get your hair cut, take a gym class, meet your French neighbours, ask directions, pay a parking ticket, or even more important, go into hospital. Our neighbours whose French isn't terrific, have just had to deal with cancer. Not easy, and while they were able to call on me for help, you may not want to divulge your intimate medical details to a third party. Get the message?

So if you are not interested in learning/improving French, I really wonder why you would bother. You can be with Man U and QPR fans in their natural enviroment.

I agree with Carlux, am starting my 4th year of French classes. I had passable spoken tourist French when I moved here three 1/2 years ago, slightly stronger comprehension.

I'm much improved, far from fluent. Had a 5- day hospital stay last November, no one spoke English, nor should they have been expected to in a small regional hospital. So glad my French had progressed beyond ordering a kir!

As for white bread, I suggest your first French lesson could be learning all the varieties of bread available, starting with pain complet, brown bread, and wholemeal bread, pain entier, meule, stoneground and that is just the top of the panier! Our little boulangerie must have about 12 types of bread available every day.

<<my friend says really not needed in his village as some many Brits live there now. He says the pubs fairly crawl with ManU and QPR fans. Sounds like i'll need to bring lots of cash dollars to smooth my path.>>

Ugh.

<i>Ugh.</i>
Ditto. Going to France to be amongst drunk Brit soccer rowdies is nonsense.

Couldn't have said it better.

Regarding the variety of French breads: probably about a decade ago, we stayed in a B&B in Montréal. One morning our hosts served bagels for breakfast. There was a French couple staying there, and it was clear from their reaction that they had never before seen a bagel. They asked how bagels were made, what you served with them, and so on.

I thought that maybe I could make a killing by opening a bagel shop in Paris. But then I thought over the varieties of breads available in France, and decided that adding one more would barely be noticed.

Have any of the residents of France commenting on this thread seen bagels in France more recently?

I've seen bagels available in Toulouse, Bergerac, Bordeaux and in several smaller communities in the southwest. Those all have or are within areas of large expat populations.

Lidl supermarkets sell bages (and they are not very good.

"bagels" !

There are even dedicated bagel shops in Paris now. I have never liked bagels, though, so I can't say if they are any good.

There is a shop that makes bagel sandwiches just across the street from where I work in Paris on rue Poissonnière. I've seen several others.

I would think that a small French village is the last place you'd run into a crowd of British soccer rowdies. Think Tenerife or Benidorm instead.

Maisie,

I have news for you. We did a bit of house-hunting around Bergerac three years ago, walked into a café in Duras and heard nothing but Hooray Henry accents. Eymet, near Duras, has a British mayor. Sports bars/cafes which broadcast Premier League are very popular.

Not judging, really, just stating what we've observed. People have a right to bing their customs and sports preferences with them. We will probably watch the Super Bowl Sunday night if I can stay awake. Shutters closed, of course.

Eek Hooray Henrys! Not really football hooley types though,Cathinjoetown. Brits in France tend to be more middle class than anything else..:)

"Eymet, near Duras, has a British mayor".

This is very surprising since EU citizens c

.......since EU citizens cannot be elected mayors.
They can only be elected to the town council.