But one interesting thing they mentioned was that in France, heritage of old buildings like these is opt-in. If you choose to opt-in the French government will pay you but you then need to abide by all sorts of standards.
This is in stark contrast with, say, English Heritage where they can decide at some point that your building is now listed, you get paid nothing and any alternations or renovations need to be approved (for maintaining the character).
If that's true about France, I prefer the sound of that system. There are literally thousands of castle/chateuas in France. Is it really justifiable to preserve all of them? Especially given that many are falling into disrepair and many of these buildings are already falling into disrepair through lack of demand for buyers.
Worked out handily for me, buying a 200+ year old cottage for less than the cost of the land, but I've been DIY'ing everything but the thatching.
Horrible, awful for the previous owners who saw at _least_ €100,000 knocked off the value of their house.
Edit: to give context, I bought it for far less than €100k, meaning the site lost most of its value.
Which is based on real-life event of the purchase of the Castle of Mey (1952):
(There is also an article on exploding houses in Ireland, but for entirely different reasons): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Irish_country_h...
But like everything else in life, castle ownership is temporary. It's such a rare thing to own, preserve, and pass a castle along to the next humans that it could be seen as a great honor. History needs to be nurtured and shared or it dies.
Yeesh.
Sorry if I didn’t express myself clearer.
Our opinion
"He who lives without madness is not as wise as he thinks", one of François-de-la-Rochefoucauld’s maxims. His statue adorns the park. This maxim could become that of the future occupants.
Castles are very much a leisure expenditure.
Most of them section off part of the palace/castle for personal use while putting up the rest as a museum.
I guess making the revenue pay for the investments in art, maintenance of the building, security, etc. and buying you clothing and food is left as an exercise for the reader.
More importantly, make sure this is a passive business of sorts. Works well if you live in or near the same place.
[1]https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/more-americans-are-renounci...
It gets even more complicated with capital gains or losses, and different rules for how losses can be moved between financial years.
(And if you live in the UAE that US passport will be really valuable if you need to avoid having you hand chopped off for pissing off the wrong people.)
take someone who makes a million+ dollars in california. Their marginal rate is 50% (37% federal + 13% CA, and with the note that the SALT limits due to Trump, dont really get them 37% back on the state tax anymore).
compare this to most european countries where your income tax rate at the top is 50% or less.
now, they have other taxes they pay (social and the like) outside of income taxes, but so does the US. FICA and ss fees also "taxes" in a way.
I agree with you they're not particularly low, though, especially when factoring in what you get or don't get. E.g. add health insurance into the picture and starts to look very different.
The US is pretty middle of the road in terms of tax.
https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/particulier/calcul-de-lif...
Minus 30% if the asset is your regular home.
There are other taxes of course, this is only the "wealth" one.
+ Taxe d’habitation (city tax), 10-20k€ if it is proportional (depends on sqm and salary, and decreasing with children).
+ Taxe foncière (land tax), same amount as previous.
But French people earn about twice as less due to taxes, so you don’t have much competition from French buyers ;) I’m not a lawyer, just a big house owner. Who got rich abroad obviously.