March 2017
From Wikipedia
Blow Out is a 1981 American neo noir thriller film written and directed by Brian De Palma, The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a presidential hopeful.
How can a 1981 movie, the year Ronald Regan got elected president, be pertinent today? I wonder. The movie is about the recording of a sound lasting a few seconds that becomes evidence with long lasting effects. That recording shows the truth of what happened against the evidence of the scene of the car accident. Many high officials in the film try to suppress this evidence, they deny the very existence of this recording. They endlessly repeat the official truth.
36 years later, is this saying something about what is happening today? Will 2017 see a blow-up?
At a complete different level, it is clear that foreigners living in France do blow-up more often than they would like. It is clear that frustration fueled by incomprehension of what is going on, frustration that is going on the right way.
Regarding the lodging issue that so many foreigners complain about, one can see that the French people face about the same problem. Again opening a bank account should be easy in France but everyone who does not have an employee job is being looked at twice before being accepted.
As for the maze of the French administration, French people get lost in it too. It just happens that it is less often with smaller consequences.
So we all blow-up in our live, being foreigners just considerably increases the chance of happening.
SELF-EMPLOYED AND FINDING LODGING IN PARIS
One side issue of the harsher law regarding renting an apartment in Paris is the ever growing difficult to convince a landlord or an agency to rent to self-employed people.
I read an article in Le Monde where a 27 year old, self-employed, professional, earning more than 3,000€ monthly, and is faced with a systematic NO from everyone. He keeps his official address in the countryside with his parents and his tax registration, but he lives in Paris, survives between couch surfing, friends and so on.
The landlords and the agencies heighten their requirements of earning significantly more than three times the rent is not enough. The hierarchy has always been this but it has become worse, the best status is being an employee with an open-ended contract called CDI, contrat à durée indéterminée, next is the long fixed term employee contracts, for about a year at a time, then the students since the parents have the right to be guarantor. A different type of rental is when the employer rents for the expat employee.
If you do not have one of those profiles, the traditional French residential lease is out of reach. Foreigners have easy access to the short-term rentals, especially when the rental starts as the person gets out of the plane. It is more expensive and the apartments are fully furnished, which is a good thing when one arrives.
Even these people, end up being in a crush. Sooner than later, many become French fiscal residents and the landlord terminates the lease, as the lease is then securing a primary residence. It is at that time that the tenant obtains the full protection from French law and before this protection is enforceable, the lease is terminated. One client was told that the apartment would be put for sale and she did not have the first right of refusal, about six months after having moved in. In the meantime, she registered as a self-employed person, which includes a registration with the tax office.
One could wonder if acquiring this professional status did not trigger the so-called desire to sell the place.
I often have the impression that I am repeating this several times a year. At the same time, I read stories like this so often that I can assure you, I do not report most of them.
En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/francaises-francais/article/2017/01/24/travailleur-independant-cherche-logement-decent-desesperement_5067944_4999913.html#M9M9Q22bLdvdDTpc.99
CHANGING BANKS IN FRANCE SHOULD BE NOW MUCH EASIER
Banking in France is a weird experience for a lot of reasons.
The one and most important one is having a bank account is pretty much a legal obligation since there are so many situations that demand the use of a bank account that the truth is that it is impossible to be settled inside French society without a bank account. CPAM and CAF only wire money to a bank account. Any payment over 1,000€, all the salaries, must be paid through a bank account, and I could go on like this. It has reached the point that if a person is refused by all the banks to open an account, maybe because his existing bank threw him out, then the Banque de France, the French Federal reserve then assigns this client to a bank without the possibility of saying no. This said, the bank then opens a savings account coming with an ATM card. So this is a rarely known aspect of French banking.
At the opposite end, the Branch Manager of a bank in France is personally criminally liable for money laundry and tax cheating done in his branch. This means that this professional and his staff are scared crazy to accept a new client unless a reliable person introduces him. So the testimony I get from my clients is that they get drilled so much more at the bank than at the prefecture. At the end the latter one seems to be a piece of cake compare to the other one. Of course the latest American legislation called FATCA is not helping the French banks to welcome the American clients. Since the prefecture demands to see the bank account statements for a reason or another, the foreigner can easily be caught between the rock and a hard place and maybe should think of this Banque de France assigned risk client procedure.
For the longest time, it was very difficult to change banks and therefore the competition in the quality of services as well as regarding the cost was non-existent. Throughout the years more and more payments are made automatically from the bank account, often in a monthly installment. So, in theory, changing banks is easy except that one has to remember the 20 or more payments and reimbursements that happen automatically on the account. Missing one and it triggers a default of payment, which can have some serious consequences. The worst is “interdit bancaire” which is being banned from having a normal banking service and be forced to use the Banque de France assigned risk client procedure.
Call it laziness or being scared of screwing-up, the bottom line is that less than 5% of people change banks every year.
This time, the new legislation is helping right on the dot. It forces the “new banker,” once the contract is signed, to open the new account to transfer everything, i.e., all those payments and reimbursements, salary payments and so on. The main reason why people do not change banks is 1. I do not know much about other countries but it feels like in France everybody is complaining about their bank, its awful service, its high fees, and the absence of reliable employees.
So, once the French administration communicates on this legislation, something is going to change and I am sure it will shake up French banking.
UFC-Que Choisir the consumer advocate NGO states that the next step should be that the same regulation as for the cellular phone industry, one keeps the same account number so it facilitates the transition completely going from one bank to the next. Indeed this legislation does not apply to the mortgaged loans, which limits its efficiency. This said, many clients have two accounts and the family account often has all those payments, and is not linked to this said loan.
We will see how effective it is. I will keep you informed, as banking in France has become a serious problem for many.
http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2017/02/06/le-changement-de-banque-simplifie_5075175_3234.html?xtmc=le_changement_de_banque_simplifie&xtcr=1
SHARP INCREASE IN LOCAL TAXES FOR PARISIAN SECONDARY DOMICILE
On the 30TH of January the Parisian City Council approved an increase on local taxes between 20% and 60%. Last November the Parliament approved a provision that allowed the cities a much wider flexibility to decide the rate of taxation for “taxe d’habitation” paid by the tenant and “taxe foncière” paid by the owner.
About ten years ago, a new vacant tax “taxe sur les logements vacants” was created to heavily tax owners who did not rent those properties nor were using them and therefore were not paying the “taxe d’habitation.”
This is not enough since owners now prefer stating that they are there a week at a time as a secondary domicile and pay the “taxe d’habitation”, which does not increase every year as the punitive vacant tax. This is a response to an increase of 43% of those residences in Paris, partially if not primary motivated by the very short-term rental industry, which existed before AirB&B but expanded considerably with it. Paris City Hall states that 107,000 apartments are secondary residence, which makes 7.5% of the global number of apartments. The city is losing its residents and losing its blue-collar businesses. An official stated:
“Taxer davantage les résidences secondaires incitera leurs propriétaires à les vendre ou à les louer à l’année, ce qui augmentera l’offre locative. Notre objectif est que ces logements bénéficient en priorité aux Parisiens.”
Heavy taxes on secondary residences should push owners to either sell or rent long term, which should increase the lodging for renters. Our goal is that the Parisians first benefit from the increase of the offer of these lodgings.
Also, and probably this should not be underestimated, the city is hoping to get an excess of 43 million euros.
En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/argent/article/2017/01/25/a-paris-la-surtaxe-sur-les-residences-secondaires-va-passer-de-20-a-60_5068843_1657007.html#2PQtqHpTkjQjdct0.99
PLURIANNUELLE CARTES DE SEJOUR
I mentioned these cards already two times, since they were first introduced for the foreign students preparing a doctorate. Starting in November 2016, holders of the carte de séjour mention salarié, i.e., employee immigration status, as well as the mentioned vie privée et familiale, personal and family status, are now issued almost systematically at the time of the first renewal. I am not certain exactly how the duration of the card is decided. Based on the information I am getting, the employee carte de sejour seems to be four years when the private life is only two. There is a lot of misunderstanding regarding the nature of these cards as people often mistake them with the carte de résident, which is the equivalent to the American Green Card. The key difference here is that a carte de séjour is issued on a specific ground, and therefore it creates a lot of limits for many of them, mainly in terms of “right to work.” During a couple of years, and maybe more, people will get those long lasting cards when they are able to ask for a carte de résident a year or two later . The real issue here is that more and more people have what I call diverse careers, and not just one employee job. So specifically, a carte de séjour mention salarié holder can be prevented to launch a side consulting, or teaching yoga for several years.
I have no idea as the regulation just came about in November 2016 if it will be possible to ask for this carte de résident while the card is still valid and for a few more years. I have already been confronted with this situation several times, making what appears to be wonderful news, just the opposite, for several.
I raised another issue regarding the profession libérale, commerçant, if and when these cards could also be issued for several years. The answer “it might be possible” being put in the French context of distrust of the self-employed in general, my guess is that this is not going to happen for quite a while. As an example, the profession libérale carte de séjour holder at the Parisian prefecture will now have this request being reviewed by the office in charge of merchant and craftsman. This is not a good sign.
REDESIGNING MY WEBSITE
My website is being redesigned, mainly so as to use more recent software to update and manage it. This means there may be a couple of days when the site will not be online. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but we will do everything we can to keep this outage as short as possible. Indeed it should evolve as I am taking over the full control of the back office and being able to update it regularly now chating is possible on all the issues.
OFFICE CLOSED JUST BEFORE SUMMER
The office will close for less than two weeks starting on Thursday June 8th, reopening on Wednesday June 21st. As always, I will be reachable by email for emergencies and important matters. The service I offer of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed. This time I am leaving France and email will truly be the only way to reach me then.
Best regards,
