What is the main problem facing second-home owners?
Post-Brexit, British second-home owners without a visa are subject to the 90-days Schengen rule
What has changed for British second-home owners as a result of Brexit?
The Brexit deals maintained the Ehic/Ghic system without which British second-home owners would have needed costly private health insurance for their stays at French homes.
However, since Brexit the main issue that British second-home owners who live in the UK report is that, post-Brexit, they are subject to the EU rule of not being able to stay in the Schengen area, including France, for more than 90 days in any rolling 180-day period without a visa – and the UK visa service not having the capacity to cope easily with this new workload.
It comes as no specific provision was made in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement for Britons who had not moved to France on a settled basis. This causes issues for families who used to come for up to half of the calendar year to their second homes as EU citizens. The only solution to stay longer is for them to now apply for a temporary long-stay visa before they come to France to visit their homes (this is, however, the same for other non-EU citizens such as Americans).
Starting in 2021 when Britons became subject to these rules there were many reports of difficulties when using the website of TLSContact. Furthermore, readers reported that it could be hard to obtain an appointment as not enough were on offer and they had in some cases log on repeatedly on different days to try to identify a slot. In 2024-2025 some users reported that the experience had improved compared to previous years.
They must then travel to one of the three TLSContact offices across the UK (there is none in Wales or Northern Ireland) taking supporting paperwork. They must also hand over their passport.
The process is essentially the same as for people who want to move to live in France, and many readers have stated that having tried it once, they would not wish to repeat it on an annual basis (it must be started from scratch for future visits).
Senator Martine Berthet told The Connexion in 2024 that she had spoken to a senior person at TLSContact about problems Britons have reported with the process. She said they told her they were unaware of the issues but that there were “far too many visas being requested compared to the French consulate’s capacity to deal with them”, which Ms Berthet said “shows there’s a problem somewhere”.