A French court has blocked efforts to allow British expats to stay in the country for longer than 90 days without a visa.
France’s Constitutional Council rejected on Thursday an amendment to the immigration bill that would allow long-stay visas to be automatically issued to British nationals who own a second home in France because it deemed it unconstitutional.
The amendment would have allowed British homeowners in France to spend as much time as they wish in the country after Brexit.
But the amendment’s defeat means all British nationals – including those with a home in France – are only be able to stay 90 days out of every 180 in the country without a visa. If they want to stay longer, they will have to apply for a temporary long-stay visa of up to six months.
There is no right of appeal against the Constitutional Council, so the decision is final.
Martine Berthet, a French senator representing the Savoie area in the Alps, tabled the amendment to these rules in November after receiving complaints from British second home owners in her region.
Ms Berthet said last year that keeping British citizens from contributing to France’s local economies would just add to an already-rising number of vacant properties in tourist areas.
The defeat of the amendment is a blow to thousands and comes after the number of British nationals house-hunting in France has surged six-fold since the law to an “automatic” right to remain in the country was first mooted.
Data from the UK-based international property portal Kyero showed that in the three weeks after the amendment was tabled, there was a 582pc increase in Britons enquiring about French properties on the site.
Jason Porter, a director at tax specialists Blevins Franks, said: “The element [to the immigration bill] for UK second home owners was always going to be rejected as it was not treating everyone equally as it does not apply for the other 61 countries eligible for visa entry into France.”
Mr Porter added that both France and Spain have been vocal on the social and economic costs of Brexit on their countries, arguing that immigration rules applying to UK nationals with property in these countries cannot visit and stay as often as they may have done previously.
When it was tabled last year, President Emmanuel Macron’s government did not back the amendment.
The president has given thousands of local authorities powers to apply council tax surcharges of up to 60pc to second homes, the owners of which include 86,000 British nationals.
Second home hotspots in France include ski capital Val-Cenis in Savoie, as well as the seaside town La Tranche-sur-Mer in the Vendée.
France is not the only popular second home destination for British nationals. Thousands of British retirees have flocked to the shores of Portugal’s “golden triangle” of resort towns in the Algarve.
