Is any tax payable on gift of French holiday home?

My father, a UK resident, bought a French holiday home in 1998 for 60,000FF. He formally gifted it to me in 2006. My siblings received gifts in the UK to compensate. My father held no other assets in France. He died this year. Does his estate owe any taxes in France in relation to this gift? R.H.

Hugh MacDonald
Published Last updated

The value of the gift was within the inheritance/gift tax rates of the time so no tax would have been due by you, the beneficiary of the gift.

As your father passed away after the gifts and at the time of his demise owned no property in France (typically the only kind of asset taxable as a non-French resident), there is effectively no taxable estate in France on the date of his death.

Anything that happened in the UK is not relevant as the only assets in which France would have had any interest – your father being a non French resident – would have been the property.

Reader's query answered by Hugh MacDonald

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second homes money inheritance tax donation aux enfants tax