You own a stone cottage in the Dordogne, a flat near Nice, a farmhouse in Brittany. Since Brexit you arrive on your British passport, the border officer stamps it, and a neighbour warns you that you must leave after 90 days or face a removal order. For many British second-home owners this warning feels abstract until it becomes concrete: a refusal of a longer stay at the prefecture, a letter telling you that you have no right to remain, questions from your insurer, or a real fear that buying a house in France no longer buys the right to live in it. This guide explains, in plain English and with the exact French legal texts, how the 90-day limit works, what an overstay can trigger, and which long-stay route genuinely allows a British owner to spend six to twelve months in their French home. Every French term is explained the first time it appears. The position is stated as it stood in September 2026, with official sources you can check.

Since the end of the Brexit transition period, British citizens are third-country nationals in European Union law: nationals of a state that is not a member of the Union and not covered by free movement. That single change explains everything in this article. A house in France gives you a property right, not a residence right. Short visits continue under the Schengen short-stay regime, capped at 90 days in any 180-day period. Any continuous presence beyond three months requires a French residence document, and the first such document for a British owner who does not work in France is normally a long-stay visitor visa, known in French as a visa de long sejour valant titre de sejour with the mention visiteur, or VLS-TS visiteur: a visa valid for up to a year which, once validated online after arrival, acts as a residence permit for its duration. The sections below set out the calculation that traps so many owners, the enforcement machinery that follows an overstay, and the practical file that persuades a consulate to grant the visitor visa and the prefecture to renew the stay.

I. Can a British second-home owner stay in France more than 90 days after Brexit?

A. How does the 90 days in any 180 days rule actually work for British visitors?

For short stays, the rule comes from the Schengen Borders Code, Regulation 2016/399 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and in particular its Article 6 on entry conditions for third-country nationals. The Code allows a British citizen who is visa-exempt for short stays to enter the Schengen area for a short stay not exceeding 90 days in any 180-day period. The 180-day window is rolling, not fixed by calendar year. Each day you are present in Schengen counts, and each day you look backwards over the previous 179 days plus today: if you have already been present for 90 days in that window, you must leave. Days in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or Ireland do not count, because those territories are outside Schengen. Days in France, Spain, Italy, Greece or any other Schengen state all count towards the same 90-day allowance, so a spring in Provence followed by a summer in Spain can exhaust the allowance faster than owners expect.

French domestic law mirrors this architecture. For stays not exceeding three months in a family or private visit context, France may require proof of accommodation in the form of an attestation d’accueil, a hosting certificate signed by the person providing lodging and validated by the town hall, described in Article L313-1 of the Code de l’entree et du sejour des etrangers et du droit d’asile, the French code on entry and residence of foreign nationals, universally shortened to CESEDA. A British owner staying in their own house does not need an attestation d’accueil, because they prove accommodation with their title deed, known as the titre de propriete, and recent taxe fonciere bills, the local property tax. But the three-month ceiling is identical. Beyond it, French law is categorical. Article L411-1 of CESEDA provides that “tout étranger âgé de plus de dix-huit ans qui souhaite séjourner en France pour une durée supérieure à trois mois doit être titulaire de l’un des documents de séjour suivants”, which means that any foreign national over eighteen who wishes to remain in France for more than three months must hold one of the listed residence documents, starting with a long-stay visa. The list continues with the temporary residence card, known as the carte de sejour temporaire, the multi-year card, known as the carte de sejour pluriannuelle, and the ten-year resident card, known as the carte de resident. None of these is granted automatically with a property purchase.

Two practical misunderstandings cause most overstays. The first is the belief that leaving Schengen for a weekend resets the clock. It does not. A short trip to London or Jersey merely pauses the count for the days spent outside Schengen; the days already spent remain in the rolling window until they age out after 180 days. Online calculators published by the European Commission apply exactly this backward-looking method, and border guards apply it with passport stamps and, increasingly, with the Entry-Exit System that records entries and exits electronically. The second misunderstanding is the belief that owning a French house, paying French property taxes, or holding a French bank account creates an exception. It creates none. Ownership proves where you sleep; it does not prove a right to reside. The only durable answer for an owner who wants a continuous six-month winter or a full year is therefore not a clever calculation but a different legal basis: a long-stay visa applied for before the trip, at the French consulate covering your place of residence in the United Kingdom.

Before Brexit, none of this applied to British citizens exercising free movement. Since 1 January 2021, the only British citizens exempt from the 90-day logic are those protected by the EU-United Kingdom Withdrawal Agreement, principally holders of the special Brexit residence card marked Accord de retrait du Royaume-Uni de l’Union europeenne, often called the WARP card after the Withdrawal Agreement Residence Permit. If you were lawfully settled in France before 31 December 2020 and hold that card, this article is not about you: you already enjoy residence rights. If you bought after that date, or never took French residence, you are an ordinary visa-exempt visitor for short stays, and everything below applies in full. The official guidance on the website France-Visas, the French government’s visa portal, and the GOV.UK Living in France guide for British nationals both confirm that a visa or residence permit is now required for any stay over 90 days, and both point to the long-stay visitor route for inactive owners.

B. What happens if you overstay: removal order, re-entry ban and insurance exposure?

An overstay in France is not a parking ticket. The enforcement tool is the obligation de quitter le territoire francais, universally shortened to OQTF: a formal administrative order to leave French territory, issued by the prefect, who is the state’s representative in each departement, the French administrative county. Article L611-1 of CESEDA authorises the prefect to order a foreign national to leave France in several defined cases, including the situation where “L’étranger, entré sur le territoire français sous couvert d’un visa désormais expiré ou, n’étant pas soumis à l’obligation du visa, entré en France plus de trois mois auparavant, s’est maintenu sur le territoire français sans être titulaire d’un titre de séjour”, which covers precisely the British visitor who entered visa-free and stayed beyond three months without a residence document. The same article covers the person whose residence application has been refused. Once the OQTF is issued, the prefect sets the country of return, may grant a voluntary departure period or order removal without delay, and may add an interdiction de retour, a re-entry ban prohibiting return to France and the Schengen area for up to several years.

The courts apply this machinery strictly, as a recent example shows. In a judgment of the Nantes administrative court of appeal, the cour administrative d’appel de Nantes, case number 25NT01849 of 26 May 2026, available at CAA Nantes 25NT01849 on Legifrance, the court recalled the text of Article L611-1 and then held that “le préfet de la Sarthe a pu légalement lui faire obligation de quitter le territoire français sur le fondement du 2° ou du 3° de l’article L. 611-1 du code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile”, meaning the prefect had lawfully ordered the person to leave on the basis of paragraph 2 or 3 of Article L611-1, where the person had entered on a now-expired visa and remained without a residence document and had also been refused a residence document. The facts concerned a different nationality, but the legal mechanism is identical for a British overstayer: expired permission plus continued presence plus no residence card equals a lawful OQTF, and the judge will also uphold the attached country-of-return designation and, where the conditions are met, the re-entry ban. An OQTF can be challenged before the administrative court, the tribunal administratif, within very short time limits, 48 hours or 30 days depending on whether a detention or removal measure accompanies it, so an owner who receives such an order needs same-week legal advice, not same-month reflection.

Beyond removal, an overstay has three quieter consequences that owners discover too late. First, days spent unlawfully in France do not count towards any future residence or towards the stable and regular residence required for French health cover, and they can undermine the good-faith presentation of a later visa file. Second, travel insurance and the United Kingdom Global Health Insurance Card, known as GHIC, cover emergency care during lawful short stays; they do not regularise an unlawful presence and they do not substitute for the comprehensive private health insurance that a long-stay visa requires. Third, an entry ban recorded in the Schengen Information System can surface at any Schengen border, not only in France, turning a French overstay into a wider European travel problem. None of this means that every owner who miscounts by a few days will be removed. It means that the risk is administrative and systemic rather than theoretical, and that the safe route is to convert the project from a long visit into a documented long stay before the 90th day, by leaving in time and applying for the correct visa from the United Kingdom, because Article L412-1 of CESEDA states that “la première délivrance d’une carte de séjour temporaire ou d’une carte de séjour pluriannuelle est subordonnée à la production par l’étranger du visa de long séjour mentionné aux 1° ou 2° de l’article L. 411-1”, so the first residence card is conditional on producing the long-stay visa obtained from the consulate, and a prefecture will not spirit a residence card out of a visa-free entry for an owner who simply stayed on.

II. Which long-stay visa lets a British owner live six to twelve months in their French house?

A. How do you obtain a visitor VLS-TS with resources, health insurance and no work?

The standard answer for an inactive British owner is the long-stay visitor visa, and where the stay is up to a year, its most practical form is the VLS-TS visiteur: a long-stay visa acting as a residence permit once validated online with the French Office for Immigration and Integration, known as OFII. Article L312-2 of CESEDA sets the framework: “Tout étranger souhaitant entrer en France en vue d’y séjourner pour une durée supérieure à trois mois doit solliciter auprès des autorités diplomatiques et consulaires françaises un visa de long séjour dont la durée de validité ne peut être supérieure à un an.” In other words, any foreign national planning to stay more than three months must apply to the French diplomatic and consular authorities for a long-stay visa valid for no more than a year, which may authorise a stay as a visitor, student, trainee or worker, and more generally any stay over three months conferring the rights of a temporary residence card. For the owner, the relevant category is visiteur, meaning a person residing in France without working.

The residence card that follows the visa obeys the same logic. Article L426-20 of CESEDA provides that “L’étranger qui apporte la preuve qu’il peut vivre de ses seules ressources, dont le montant doit être au moins égal au salaire minimum de croissance net annuel”, receives a one-year temporary visitor card, and adds that the applicant must also prove health insurance covering the stay and “prendre l’engagement de n’exercer en France aucune activité professionnelle”, a formal undertaking to carry on no professional activity in France. Three conditions therefore decide almost every British visitor file: sufficient resources from your own means at least equal to the net annual minimum wage, known as the SMIC, comprehensive health cover, and a signed undertaking not to work. The Service-Public visitor card page, verified on 1 June 2026, restates these three pillars and the one-year duration, and the France-Visas long-stay visa page lists the supporting documents the consulate will expect. In practice, consulates look for the last three to six months of bank statements showing stable balances and income, pension statements for retirees, investment or rental income evidence for others, a full-year private health insurance certificate with no major exclusions and repatriation cover, proof of accommodation in the form of the title deed plus recent utility bills and taxe fonciere, a return or onward travel booking consistent with the visa dates, and the signed no-work declaration.

Two points in this file cause most British refusals, and both are illustrated by recent case law. The first is resources. Consulates do not only count savings; they assess whether the means are stable, lawful and available for the whole stay, and whether family support promises are documented with the supporters’ own income. The second is the coherence of the project. A visitor visa is for genuine temporary residence in your French home, not for disguised settlement or disguised work. Remote work for a British employer while physically in France sits in a grey area that consulates and prefectures treat with suspicion, because the visitor status prohibits French professional activity and the file must be consistent. If you intend to work remotely full time from France, you need a different route, such as a work-authorised status, and you should not present a visitor file that conceals that plan. Similarly, the health insurance must genuinely cover the stay: a travel policy capped at 90 days, a GHIC alone, or a policy that excludes pre-existing conditions without adequate cover will be treated as inadequate, because the logic of Article L160-1 of the Social Security Code, which states that “Toute personne travaillant ou, lorsqu’elle n’exerce pas d’activité professionnelle, résidant en France de manière stable et régulière bénéficie, en cas de maladie ou de maternité, de la prise en charge de ses frais de santé”, only opens French state health cover to stable and regular residents, a status a freshly arrived visitor on a VLS-TS does not yet hold for affiliation purposes, which is exactly why the consulate insists on full private cover for the first year.

After arrival, the VLS-TS must be validated online within three months, a medical examination may be required depending on nationality and category, and the visa then authorises residence for its validity without a separate prefecture appointment. If you wish to remain beyond the visa year, you apply to the prefecture of your French home for the one-year visiteur residence card two to four months before expiry, producing updated resources, insurance, accommodation and tax evidence. During the first year, register with the tax office, file where required, keep utility and insurance records, and avoid any undeclared work, because the renewal examines continuity of resources and respect of the no-work undertaking. Owners who instead arrive visa-free and then ask the prefecture for a visitor card without the consular long-stay visa will be refused on the Article L412-1 ground already quoted: no first card without the long-stay visa. The sequence is therefore rigid by design: consular visa in London or Edinburgh, validation after arrival, prefectural card for year two. Respect it and the 90-day problem disappears; ignore it and the overstay machinery described in Part I applies.

B. How do you challenge a visa refusal or an OQTF before the French courts?

French consulates enjoy a wide discretion on visitor visas, but that discretion is controlled by the administrative judge for manifest error and misuse of power. The leading recent illustration is the judgment of the Nantes court of appeal in case 24NT03124 of 12 September 2025, published at CAA Nantes 24NT03124 on Legifrance, concerning a visitor long-stay visa. The court first recorded that the visa appeals commission had rejected the application because “Mme C… veuve D… n’a pas fourni la preuve qu’elle dispose de ressources suffisantes pour couvrir ses frais de toute nature durant son séjour en France et, d’autre part, qu’elle ne dispose pas d’une assurance-maladie adéquate et valable”, meaning the applicant had not proved sufficient resources for all expenses during the stay nor adequate valid health insurance. It then stated the governing principle for visitor visas: “L’étranger désirant se rendre en France et qui sollicite un visa de long séjour en qualité de visiteur doit justifier de la nécessité dans laquelle il se trouve de résider en France pour un séjour de plus de trois mois.” An applicant must therefore show a genuine need to reside in France for more than three months, which a British owner readily does with ownership, family ties and a concrete residence project, and the authorities “disposent, sous le contrôle du juge de l’excès de pouvoir, d’un large pouvoir d’appréciation et peuvent se fonder non seulement sur des motifs tenant à l’ordre public, tel que le détournement de l’objet du visa, mais aussi sur toute considération d’intérêt général”, holding a broad discretion under the control of the judge for abuse of power, able to rely not only on public-order grounds such as misuse of the visa’s purpose but on any general-interest consideration.

In that case the court annulled the refusal, and its reasoning is directly useful to British owners. On resources, the court accepted that the applicant, who had no income of her own, “doit être regardée comme justifiant de ressources suffisantes pour couvrir ses frais durant son séjour en France” (CAA Nantes 24NT03124, point 5), had to be regarded as showing sufficient resources, because her daughters and son-in-law had undertaken to house her and meet all her needs and proved their own substantial declared incomes. Transposed to a British file, this means documented third-party support can work, but only with signed undertakings plus the supporters’ tax notices and bank evidence, not bare promises. On misuse of purpose, the minister argued that the applicant would settle permanently with her daughters rather than visit, yet the court held that the circumstances invoked “ne sont pas de nature à démontrer l’existence d’un risque avéré de détournement par la requérante de l’objet du visa, en ce que le motif indiqué dans la demande ne correspondrait manifestement pas à la finalité réelle du séjour en France” (CAA Nantes 24NT03124, point 8), meaning they did not prove a confirmed risk that the stated purpose manifestly mismatched the real purpose. For an owner, the lesson is symmetrical: a clear, documented residence project in your own house defeats a vague misuse allegation, while an evasive or contradictory file invites it. The practical challenge route is a two-stage procedure: first a mandatory appeal to the commission de recours contre les refus de visa, the statutory appeals commission against visa refusals, within two months of the consular refusal, then, if the commission expressly or implicitly rejects, an action for annulment before the Nantes administrative court, which has exclusive jurisdiction over visa-refusal litigation, with a request that the judge order reconsideration or issuance.

Challenging an OQTF follows a different timetable and a different court. The competent court is the administrative court of the prefecture that issued the order, and the time limit can be as short as 48 hours where the OQTF accompanies detention or a removal flight, or 30 days in the standard case, so the summons, known as the requete, must be lodged immediately with a request for interim suspension where available. The grounds to plead mirror the court’s own checklist in the 25NT01849 decision: defective statement of reasons, failure to examine the personal situation fully, factual error on entry date or residence documents, and breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights where private and family life in France is established. A British owner with a French house, French tax filings, continuous insurance, and British family visiting regularly pleads Article 8 more credibly than a transient visitor, but ownership alone does not neutralise an otherwise lawful OQTF where the stay exceeded 90 days without permission. This is why the refusal of a visitor card is itself governed by Article L432-1 of CESEDA, which allows refusal “par une décision motivée” where presence threatens public order, and more broadly by the requirement that refusals be reasoned in fact and law: demand the written reasons, identify whether the stated ground is resources, insurance, coherence or public order, and attack that ground with documents rather than generalities. In both visa and removal litigation, keep every envelope, email header and acknowledgment of receipt, because time limits run from notification and the judge verifies them strictly.

For owners reading this after receiving a refusal or an OQTF, the immediate checklist is short. Do not let the deadline pass while gathering documents: file the appeal or court action first, even briefly reasoned, then complete the file with a supplementary memorandum, known as a memoire complementaire. Attach the title deed, the last taxe fonciere and taxe d’habitation bills where applicable, the consular application with its appointment confirmation, the full bank and pension file, the full insurance policy wording not just the certificate, the OFII validation if the stay began on a VLS-TS, and proof of departure bookings showing that you respect time limits while the case is pending. Ask the commission or the court expressly for annulment plus an injunction to reconsider or to issue, because without that injunction a bare annulment sends you back to the queue. And do not re-enter Schengen in breach of a re-entry ban while the challenge is pending without advice, as breach can compound the enforcement record. Handled this way, many visitor-visa refusals that rest on thin resource or insurance reasoning can be reversed, as the 24NT03124 annulment demonstrates, while overstay OQTFs that rest on the solid arithmetic of days present are far harder to overturn, which confirms the central message of this guide: secure the visa before the long stay, not the lawyer after the order.

Conclusion

Owning a French house after Brexit still offers everything that drew British buyers to France: village life, space, climate, and a tangible family asset. It no longer offers the right to live in that house beyond 90 days in any 180 without a French permission. Count short stays on the rolling Schengen basis, treat the 90th day as a hard stop while visa-free, and build any longer project on the visitor long-stay visa applied for in the United Kingdom, with resources at least at the SMIC level, full-year private health insurance, and a signed undertaking not to work. Validate the VLS-TS after arrival, keep the paper trail for renewal, and challenge refusals through the visa appeals commission and the Nantes court, or OQTFs before the local administrative court, within days not weeks. Taken in that order, the French system is demanding but predictable, and a well-documented British owner who respects the sequence can lawfully spend the winter, the spring, or the full year in the house they own.

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