You bought a stone farmhouse in the Dordogne, or a two-bedroom flat near Antibes, years ago, when freedom of movement made the purchase feel as simple as buying in Norfolk. You live in Britain, you pay British tax, and the French house is the place the family visits every summer. Now you want to sell. The French estate agent names a good price, and then the notaire (the French conveyancing solicitor who handles the sale) tells you that a five-figure sum will be taken from the price on the day of completion: French capital gains tax, French social charges, possibly a surtax, and the fee of a fiscal representative you have never heard of, appointed because you live outside the European Union. This article explains, for a British resident who has never been French tax resident, how the French bill is calculated, which Brexit-driven formalities apply only to you, how the France–United Kingdom double tax treaty prevents you paying twice, and how to challenge a bill that is wrong.

The French term for the tax is plus-value immobilière, literally the increase in the value of a property. A second home (résidence secondaire) is any dwelling that is not your main home (résidence principale). As a person whose tax home (domicile fiscal) is in Britain under article 244 bis A of the French General Tax Code (code général des impôts), you are a non-resident (non-résident) for French tax purposes, and a special levy (prélèvement) applies to your gain. The double tax treaty referred to throughout is the convention signed in London on 19 June 2008 between France and the United Kingdom for the avoidance of double taxation, as explained by the French tax administration. Every deadline and every rate stated below comes from a text or decision read for this article, with its link beside it.

I. How France taxes the sale when you live in Britain

France taxes the gain where the property stands, even though you live in Guildford or Glasgow. The treaty confirms this: under paragraph 1 of article 14 of the convention, gains that a resident of one State derives from the disposal (aliénation) of immovable property covered by article 6 of the convention are taxable in the State where the property is situated. The French administration adds that this rule follows the OECD model and applies to business gains too, even without a permanent establishment in France. So the French calculation comes first, the French tax is collected at completion, and the British treatment comes second, as a credit. Understanding the French calculation is therefore the foundation of everything.

A. Working out the taxable gain and the bill: price difference, holding relief, 19 per cent, social charges and the surtax

The starting point is deliberately simple. Article 150 V of the General Tax Code provides that the gross gain on the disposal of property covered by articles 150 U to 150 UC is the difference between the sale price and the purchase price paid by the seller. In practice the purchase price is increased by certain documented costs: the stamp duty and notaire fees paid on acquisition (or a flat-rate uplift where the official rules allow it), genuine improvement works carried out by a registered builder and supported by invoices, and the estate agent commission where it was borne by the seller. Keep every invoice from the day you buy, because fifteen years later the notaire can only add what you can prove, and an undocumented extension or a cash-paid roof adds nothing to your cost base.

Three preliminary exemptions can remove the gain entirely, and you should test them before doing any arithmetic. First, article 150 U of the General Tax Code exempts disposals whose sale price is 15,000 euros or less, the threshold being assessed on the full ownership value of the property or, for co-owned property, on each undivided share. A garage or a small plot can fall under this threshold even when the rest of the estate does not, because the test applies per disposal. Second, a property you held for a very long time may be fully relieved: you pay no income tax on the gain for any property held for more than 22 years, and no social charges for property held for more than 30 years. Third, if the house you are selling was your main home in France before you moved back to Britain, the first paragraph of article 244 bis A exempts the sale of what was your main residence in France on the date you transferred your tax home out of France, provided the sale takes place no later than 31 December of the year following that transfer and the property has not been made available to third parties, free or for payment, between the transfer and the sale. Miss either condition and the exemption is lost. If you left France three years ago and let the house to holidaymakers since, this exemption is already gone, and the gain is fully taxable.

Where no exemption applies, the gross gain is reduced by holding relief (abattement pour durée de détention), a percentage that grows with each year of ownership. The official service-public guidance explains the mechanism: you receive income-tax relief of 6 per cent per year from the sixth to the tenth year of ownership, and social-charges relief of 1.65 per cent per year over the same period, with further relief in later years up to full exemption at 22 years for income tax and 30 years for social charges. Take a concrete, simplified illustration. You bought in 2018 and sell in 2026, eight full years later, with a gross gain of 60,000 euros after deductible costs. Three years of relief have accrued (years six, seven and eight), so income-tax relief is 18 per cent and social-charges relief is 4.95 per cent. The income-tax base is 60,000 euros minus 10,800 euros, which is 49,200 euros. The social-charges base is 60,000 euros minus 2,970 euros, which is 57,030 euros. This is only an illustration: your notaire performs the exact computation on form 2048-IMM-SD and the simulator published by the administration lets you check the order of magnitude before you sign anything.

On the reduced bases, two proportional levies apply. Article 200 B of the General Tax Code provides that gains falling within articles 150 U to 150 UC are taxed at the flat rate of 19 per cent, and the same official guidance confirms that the property gain, after deduction of relief, is subject to income tax at 19 per cent, so that a taxable gain of 20,000 euros produces income tax of 3,800 euros. In the illustration above, 19 per cent of 49,200 euros is 9,348 euros. Social charges (prélèvements sociaux) are then charged on their own base: you must pay social charges at the rate of 17.2 per cent, so that a taxable gain of 20,000 euros produces social charges of 3,440 euros and a combined levy of 7,240 euros. In the illustration, 17.2 per cent of 57,030 euros is 9,809.16 euros, giving a combined French bill of about 19,157 euros before any surtax. The legal basis of these contributions is the social security legislation, which brings capital gains subject to income tax within the base of the contribution on property income: article L136-6 of the Social Security Code lists among the income subject to the contribution the capital gains and profits subject to income tax. If your gain straddles different rates or relief bands, each line of the 2048-IMM computation must be checked separately, because an error on the holding period changes both bases at once.

A third layer applies to large gains. Article 1609 nonies G of the General Tax Code provides that the surtax is due on taxable gains above 50,000 euros, under a scale applied to the total taxable gain, running from 2 per cent to 6 per cent with smoothing bands (for example 2 per cent between 60,001 and 100,000 euros, 3 per cent between 110,001 and 150,000 euros, 4 per cent between 160,001 and 200,000 euros, 5 per cent between 210,001 and 250,000 euros, and 6 per cent above 260,000 euros). The surtax is assessed on the taxable gain as computed for income tax, is owed by the seller, and is payable at the time of disposal; it does not apply to exempt sales or to sales of building land. In the illustration above the taxable gain of 49,200 euros sits just below the threshold, so no surtax is due, but a gain of 60,000 euros taxable would attract it, and the 2048-IMM form contains the table for the exact amount. Because the surtax bites on the total taxable gain, crossing the 50,000 euro line by a few hundred euros can cost over a thousand euros of extra tax, which is why the holding-relief computation must be exact to the year.

Collection is automatic and happens at completion, not months later through a tax return. The notaire calculates the taxable gain, draws up the 2048-IMM declaration, withholds the tax from the sale price, and pays it to the land registration office (service de la publicité foncière) for the place where the property stands when the deed is registered. The official guidance describes these formalities: the notaire carries out the steps with the tax administration, calculates the taxable gain and the tax due, draws up the declaration, and pays the property-gains tax to the land registration office of the place where the property is situated. You receive the net price. If the figures are wrong, you do not get the money back by asking the notaire nicely; you must use the formal challenge routes described in part II, which is why checking the draft 2048-IMM before completion day matters more than anything else in this process.

B. The Brexit paperwork: the accredited fiscal representative and the European exemptions you have lost

The single biggest Brexit change for a British seller is not a rate but a person: the fiscal representative (représentant fiscal). Under article 244 bis A, the tax due is paid when the deed is registered or, failing registration, within the month following the disposal, under the responsibility of a representative established in France and accredited by the tax administration, and only a person meeting strict conditions can be accredited: no serious or repeated tax offences, no disqualifying commercial sanctions in the previous three years, compliance with reporting and payment duties, and financial guarantees, with withdrawal of accreditation if any condition fails. In plain terms, a British-resident seller of a taxable French property must appoint, and pay, a French-accredited professional who stands liable to the French Treasury for the tax. The notaire usually introduces one, the representative checks the computation, and the tax is paid under their responsibility.

Before Brexit, a British seller living in London was exempt from this obligation as an EU national; since 1 January 2021 the United Kingdom is a third country and the exemption is gone. The same article provides that the duty to appoint a fiscal representative does not apply where the seller is domiciled, established or constituted in a Member State of the European Union or in another State party to the European Economic Area agreement that has concluded administrative assistance and recovery assistance conventions with France. Britain has comprehensive tax cooperation with France, including the 2008 treaty, but it is neither an EU member nor an EEA party, so the dispensation does not cover you. Service-public states the position bluntly: if you are non-resident, you must appoint a fiscal representative as soon as your gain is subject to tax, and your representative must be accredited by the tax administration and offer financial guarantees. Automatic dispensation survives only in narrow cases: you are dispensed from a fiscal representative if you are a national of an EU or EEA country having concluded a convention with France, if the sale price does not exceed 150,000 euros, or if your gain is exempt from income tax and social charges given the holding period. A British seller of a 300,000 euro house owned for eight years meets none of these tests and must appoint one.

The same European boundary runs through the exemptions. Article 150 U of the General Tax Code grants, for the sale of a dwelling in France by a non-resident individual, an exemption within the limit of one residence per taxpayer and 150,000 euros of net taxable gain, only where the seller is a national of an EU Member State or of another EEA State having concluded an administrative assistance convention with France, and has been continuously domiciled in France for tax purposes for at least two years at some point before the disposal. Service-public confirms the two cumulative conditions: you must be a national of the European Union or the European Economic Area having concluded a convention with France, and you must have been continuously domiciled in France for tax purposes for at least two years; the sale must then take place no later than 31 December of the tenth year following the year you transferred your tax home out of France, although no time limit applies if you have had free disposal of the dwelling at least since 1 January of the year preceding the sale. A British passport holder who never lived in France fails the first condition outright. A British former resident who lived in Lyon for five years before returning to Manchester in 2020 also fails it now, because British nationality is no longer the nationality of an EU or EEA State. This is a deliberate legislative choice, not an oversight, and no claim for equal treatment repairs it: the statute says what it says.

Two practical consequences follow. First, budget for the representative from the start: their engagement letter, their fee, and the time they need to review your file must be in place weeks before completion, because the tax is paid under their responsibility within the month following the disposal at the latest and in practice on completion day. Second, assemble the file the representative and the notaire will demand: the original purchase deed (acte d’acquisition) with its price and fees, invoices for improvement works with the builder’s registration details, proof of the dates of ownership, your British passport and proof of UK residence (council tax bill, HMRC correspondence), and, where relevant, evidence of a past French tax domicile. If you bought through a British company or hold the property through a société civile immobilière (SCI, the French family property company), say so immediately, because the levy applies differently to legal entities and to French partnerships in proportion to the rights held by non-resident partners. If you are selling after leaving France, read the companion analysis of the former resident’s position, which covers the exemption windows and the six-year treaty tail in detail: Left France for Britain and Now Sell Your Old French Home After Brexit: Exemption Windows, the 150,000-Euro Trap, the Six-Year Treaty Tail and Challenging the Bill. That article deals with the person who used to live in the house; this one deals with the owner who never did.

II. Paying only once and challenging what is wrong

France taxes first, but you should not pay twice. As a British tax resident you are taxable in the United Kingdom on your worldwide gains, including the gain on a French house, and the treaty allocates the primary right to France while obliging Britain to relieve the double charge. The second half of this article explains how that relief works, including the trap for people who left France recently, and then sets out the French remedies when the notaire’s figures or the administration’s position are wrong.

A. The treaty allocation, the six-year tail for recent leavers, and the British foreign tax credit

The treaty rule for your case is short and decisive. Under paragraph 1 of article 14 of the France–United Kingdom convention, gains derived by a resident of one State from the disposal of immovable property covered by article 6 of the convention are taxable in the State where the property is situated, a stipulation consistent with the OECD model tax convention. Your Dordogne farmhouse is immovable property situated in France, so France may tax the gain under its domestic rules, which is exactly what articles 244 bis A, 150 U, 200 B and 1609 nonies G do. The treaty does not cap the French rates and does not exempt you from the fiscal representative; it simply confirms that France is entitled to tax. The same treaty section extends situs taxation to shares and rights deriving most of their value, directly or indirectly, from French immovable property, and to rights in partnerships and trusts whose assets consist principally of such property: under these stipulations, the convention allows the French domestic provisions on gains realised on shares or rights in predominantly property-based companies, that is article 244 bis A of the CGI, to be applied to United Kingdom residents. If you hold the villa through an SCI whose units you sell rather than the bricks themselves, France still taxes.

One treaty paragraph deserves special attention if you lived in France before returning to Britain. Paragraph 6 of article 14 of the convention allows a Contracting State to tax, under its domestic law, gains from the disposal of any property realised by a person who, at any time during the fiscal year of disposal or at any time during the six preceding fiscal years, is or was resident of that State. This is the six-year tail: France keeps a residual right to tax certain gains of a person who left within the previous six years, even for property the situs rule would otherwise allocate elsewhere, and paragraph 4 of article 24 of the convention provides specific elimination mechanics for double taxation that may result from applying that paragraph, with the State taxing only by virtue of paragraph 6 of article 14 bearing the duty to eliminate the double taxation as if the gains came from the other State. For a straightforward French second home sold by a long-standing British resident, the situs rule alone decides and the tail adds nothing; for someone who moved from Bordeaux to Bristol four years ago, both provisions must be read together with the domestic exemption windows, which is the subject of the companion article cited above: Left France for Britain and Now Sell Your Old French Home After Brexit: Exemption Windows, the 150,000-Euro Trap, the Six-Year Treaty Tail and Challenging the Bill.

On the British side, relief comes through His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, not through France. You can usually claim Foreign Tax Credit Relief when you report your overseas income in your tax return, and how much relief you get depends on the United Kingdom’s double-taxation agreement with the country your income is from. In practice you declare the French property gain on your Self Assessment return, compute the British capital gains tax on it under British rules (which differ from the French computation: different base cost, different reliefs, different rates and annual exempt amount), and claim a credit for the French tax paid, limited to the British tax attributable to the same gain. Keep the notaire’s 2048-IMM, the completion statement showing the French levy withheld, the purchase deed, and proof of payment: HMRC may ask for evidence that the French tax corresponds to capital gains tax and was actually paid. If the French levy exceeds the British tax on the same gain, the excess is not refunded by Britain; if the British tax exceeds the French levy, you pay the difference in Britain. The two computations never match line for line, so do both before completion if you need the cash-flow picture, and never assume that because France has taxed the gain, nothing is due in Britain.

The Conseil d’État has recently restated how treaty credits of this family work, in a case about the French-American treaty whose architecture mirrors the British one. The Court held that a property gain realised through transparent entities is characterised as an immovable-property gain taxable in the State where the buildings stand, without preventing the residence State from taking the income into account, the double taxation being eliminated by granting the taxpayer, under the treaty, a tax credit against French tax limited to French tax and equal to the amount of tax paid, in respect of that gain, in the other State (Conseil d’État, 9th–10th chambers combined, 28 February 2025, no. 491788). The mirror applies to you in reverse: France taxes as the situs State, Britain credits as the residence State, and the credit cannot exceed the British tax on the gain. Cite the treaty, file both returns, and keep the paper trail on both sides of the Channel.

B. Challenging the French bill: complaint, judge, and the notaire’s liability

Three kinds of error recur in non-resident sales, and each has its remedy. The holding period is miscounted by a year, moving the relief band or the surtax threshold. Deductible works are rejected for want of proper invoices. Or the notaire applies, or fails to apply, an exemption: the former-main-home window, the 15,000 euro threshold, or the holding-period exemption. Because the tax is withheld at completion, the error costs you cash on the day, and the correction comes afterwards through the tax complaints system, not through the notaire’s client account.

The first step is the formal tax complaint (réclamation contentieuse). Article L190 of the Tax Procedures Book (livre des procédures fiscales) provides that complaints seeking either reparation for errors made in the basis or calculation of assessments, or the benefit of a right resulting from a legislative or regulatory provision, fall within contentious jurisdiction, and that all actions seeking discharge or reduction of a tax or restitution of undue tax are investigated and judged under the rules of that chapter. Address the complaint to the tax office that collected the levy (in practice the office for non-residents), identify the deed, the 2048-IMM, and each disputed line with its legal basis, attach the purchase deed, the works invoices, and the proof of holding dates, and ask expressly for discharge or reduction of the precise amounts. A vague letter asking for a gesture achieves nothing; a line-by-line complaint citing the article for each correction forces an answer on each point. Note also that the levy under article 244 bis A is in principle in full discharge (libératoire) of the income tax due on the sums that bore it: the article states that the levy is in discharge of the income tax due in respect of the sums that have borne it, which frames what a complaint can usefully seek: correction of the base and the liquidation, not a second assessment of the same gain.

If the administration rejects the complaint expressly or by silence, the dispute moves to the administrative courts. Article R421-1 of the Administrative Justice Code provides that the court can only be seized by way of an appeal against a decision, within two months of notification or publication of the contested decision. Diarise that two-month limit from the rejection: it is short, it runs from notification, and missing it ends the case whatever its merits. Before the tribunal administratif, the same line-by-line method applies, with the 2048-IMM, the deed, and the treaty as exhibits. Where the dispute turns on the scope of the treaty, for example the interaction of the situs rule with the six-year tail, ask for the treaty articles and the BOFiP commentary to be put before the court in full, because tribunals decide on the texts cited, not on summaries.

The second possible defendant is the notaire, where the loss comes from defective conveyancing rather than from the administration’s reading of a correct file. The duty is strict. As the Paris Court of Appeal recalled on 19 March 2024 (RG 21/01462), the notaire is bound to ensure the effectiveness of the instrument he draws up and owes a duty of information and advice to all parties to the deed he assists with. In that case the notaire knew the sellers might reinvest the price in a main home but recorded nothing in the deed, then suggested a later corrective deed would fix it; the court held that in so doing the notaire failed in his duty of information, and that he also failed in his duty of advice by not warning them at the very least of the uncertainty affecting the applicable tax regime and of the risk of losing the exemption. Transposed to your sale, the lesson is that the notaire must warn you before completion about the representative requirement, the loss of the European exemptions, the effect of the holding period on the surtax, and any uncertainty in the file, and must record the exemption position in the deed where the statute requires mentions in the instrument itself.

But suing the notaire requires proving all three elements of liability, and courts reject claims that prove only the first. Article 1240 of the Civil Code states the foundation: any act of man that causes damage to another obliges the person by whose fault it occurred to repair it, which the courts apply as fault, causation and quantified loss. The Versailles Court of Appeal applied exactly that discipline to a defective plus-value declaration: even assuming fault, it follows that the loss invoked, merely alleged, is not demonstrated, so the judgment ordering the notaire to compensate must be reversed (Versailles Court of Appeal, 1st chamber, 25 July 2023, no. 21/03288). Sellers who claimed they would have delayed completion to reorganise their affairs produced no evidence that they had the intention, the financial and practical means or the opportunity to do so, and recovered nothing. So document your loss as carefully as your gain: the completion statement, the 2048-IMM, the representative’s invoice, the exchange-rate evidence, the British return showing the unrelieved balance, and any evidence that with correct advice you would have acted differently, such as dated correspondence proposing a different completion date. A complaint against the assessment and an action against the notaire can run in parallel, but they ask different questions: was the tax legally due, and separately, did the professional’s fault cost you money you would otherwise have kept.

Conclusion

Selling a French second home from Britain after Brexit means accepting three propositions together. France taxes the gain where the property stands at 19 per cent plus 17.2 per cent social charges, with holding relief, a surtax above 50,000 euros of taxable gain, and collection by the notaire at completion on form 2048-IMM. Because Britain is no longer in the European Union, you must in most cases appoint an accredited fiscal representative who answers to the Treasury for your tax, and you cannot claim the European-only reliefs, notably the 150,000 euro second-dwelling exemption reserved to EU and EEA nationals. Britain then taxes the same gain as your residence State and relieves the French tax by Foreign Tax Credit Relief claimed on your Self Assessment return, within the limit of the British tax on that gain, with the treaty’s six-year tail to check if you left France recently. When the figures are wrong, complain line by line under article L190, go to the administrative court within two months of refusal, and hold the notaire to the duties the Paris and Versailles courts have just restated, while proving every euro of loss. Prepare the file before the compromis, check the draft 2048-IMM before completion, and each of these steps becomes routine instead of a surprise.