Love France - What to do ??

copabois

Fed up with the UK rat race and losing the market we held for 15years we decided to 'wrap up' the business : Bought a super house in France left approx £140K in UK building society : Mortgage free & debt free we moved.

Been here 1 year - stress gone - but worried that money will not see me through. There are NO JOBS here ! : UK has cut us off as if we didn't exist ! French unable to help (except medical)

Any suggestions as to what to do with money - except spend it ! - That's a fairly safe bet as its all we will ever get.

Suggestions please

Copabois

al_yrpal

An aquaintance of mine had the same problem. He tried teaching English - limited market and no money. He used to be in sales with Prudential in the UK. He made a new career selling insurance/financial services to expats. There must be all sorts of srvices you can sell to expats. Took a bit of time but he now earns a decent living. Try to hang on to as much capital as possible to tide you through until your new business works.

Bonne chance

Cook_County

It appears from what you have said that you are still resident and ordinarily resident in the UK for tax purposes, because you are not in full-time employment overseas. For French tax purposes you are also resident in France because (using the French definition) you are domiciled in France (of course using the UK meaning you are also still domiciled within the UK).

So the question is where do you pay income tax, wealth tax etc? The answer is contained in the France/UK double taxation agreement. It may just be France, but will depend on several factors. Until you know which of the two countries is subjecting your income to tax, it is going to be dangerous to give guidelines on where you should put your money.

sugarfree

Hi.

I'm a British citizen who's been living in France for the past 8 years. I'm not quite sure what your question is. Are you looking for a job or a a tax-efficient vehicle to put your money into?

Re. the job situation, unemployment has been very high in France for years. Also, wages tend to be low (so low in fact, that the majority of the French population doesn't even earn enough to pay income tax). Are you looking to set up your own business or find a job? Neither are easy and I wish you luck.

If you're looking for a tax-efficient vehicle for your savings, and if you're a French resident, you can invest up to 132,000 euros over your lifetime in a PEA (Plan d'Epargne Actions). If you're married, the allowance is 264,000 euros for the couple. Although all capital gains are tax-free if you hold the plan for at least 8 years, you will have to pay 11% in something called "prélèvements sociaux". Your French bank can tell you all about it.

Which part of France are you in? I'm in Strasbourg.

sugarfree

Me again - I just had a thought. There are loads of ex-pats here in Strasbourg (most of us work for one of the big international organisations) and all my friends are always bemoaning the fact that there isn't a decent web site for Brits living in France. Of if there is, we don't know about it. I'm thinking of a web site that would cover everything specifically of interest to Brits living in France: dealing with French bureaucracy, financial issues, advertising services for people with properties to rent, for example. Everything. Is that something you could make money from? Go for it! The ex-pat community in Strasbourg will be eternally grateful.

sugarfree

Another idea (I'm full of them this morning - must be the caffeine). I don't know what's it's like in your neck of the woods, but here in Strasbourg there seems to be a growing contingent of affluent, middle-class French parents who are very eager for their little darlings to learn English from native speakers. I have one friend who works full-time as a teacher in an international school and who also does a bit of after-school tutoring in people's homes. She says she has been inundated with requests from ambitious French parents and could easily give up her full-time teaching job tomorrow. Just a thought.

bbruce

Brits living in Spain find the same problems.
Most of them do handyman type work for each other or look after places that are let out and do the changeovers.
Only pin money but puts food on the table.
Do you have an ex-pat community? If not, post your location and surely someone on this forum will have contacts.

EdInvestor

One lesson from this thread for people planning to move to another country: don't buy a property first, keep your capital invested and rent.

That way, if you need to move because your chosen location doesn't work out for some reason, or you discover you simply don;t have enough money saved,it's easy.

Selling property overseas is almost always much more difficult than buying it - indeed in some markets resale property is worth a lot less than you paid for it new ( rather like a car) and buyers can be few and far between.:(

So hang onto your capital until you're really sure you've found the place you will be happy in for the long term and have established a manageable lifestyle you can afford.

Ted_Bloke

sugarfree wrote:

Me again - I just had a thought. There are loads of ex-pats here in Strasbourg (most of us work for one of the big international organisations) and all my friends are always bemoaning the fact that there isn't a decent web site for Brits living in France. Of if there is, we don't know about it. I'm thinking of a web site that would cover everything specifically of interest to Brits living in France: dealing with French bureaucracy, financial issues, advertising services for people with properties to rent, for example. Everything. Is that something you could make money from? Go for it! The ex-pat community in Strasbourg will be eternally grateful.

Firstly have you heard tiresome people like me and my friend Mr. P. Dantry lamenting that people who left school more than forty years ago were without proper educashun in speling and gramar? A few years ago I wrote to a lady from Abbey who was telling me what they did or mainly didn't do for ex-patriots, saying I am not an ex-patriot, young lady, I am a very patriotic expatriate.
Please, no more about ex-pats on pain of being reported to The Times.
xpat is an option.

Seondly I've just posted a reply to related queries on the thread 'living abroad'.
About financial advice, Strasbourg maybe a bit of a second-tier destination for these advisors I talked about. They probably home in on the known centres were expats are concentrated like EP and Council of Europe and assorted IO's. Try to scrape some acquaintance there.

Middle_Sister

Here is a link to a useful site for expatriates. Good luck.

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/search.php?mode=results

Middle_Sister

Oops, try again.

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=37

You can use the search facility. Look in the expats section - use the word France and you can find quite a bit of info.