French property is often looked at as a sound investment for many reasons that have proved right over the last century:

• France is the world leader in tourism
• Côte d'Azur, Paris and the Alps offer top market properties
• The demand for office and commercial space is high
• The demand for residential property is extremely high

The variety of investment tools is wide and provides easy access to:

• collective investment vehicles (SCPI)
• split ownership solutions designed to enhance return and reduce taxes ('nue-propriété')
• tax-efficient structures for individual investors or property developers (SCI, SCCV, SARL)
• many others, from simple structures to the most sophisticated international direct or indirect ownership schemes

Even simple, direct ownership may offer very significant tax benefits in the long run. Individuals have access to tax-deduction schemes such as LMP that ideally combine with the French Tax Shield.

Luxemburg sometimes remains an option to control capital gains tax.

Trusts may invest in French property if they ensure that certain precautions are taken.

Property tax planning consists in finding an optimal combination to protect the asset, mitigate income, wealth, capital gain and inheritance taxes. We view individual property tax planning as one of the items of a more general solution for overall tax planning. We always favour the simplest solution in order to minimize costs and facilitate exit strategies.

Property is not an area where solutions can be easily duplicated from one investor to another and we often experience that the efforts required to design the right structure are proportionate to the magnitude of the investment. So are the tax benefits.