Owning a French holiday home but only using it occasionally will get more expensive next year after France’s government pushed the first stages of a new property tax regime through the National Assembly.

The tax, which could force many holiday home owners to pay between £500 and £3,000 a year extra in tax – depending where they own – will be levied on the 350,000 foreign-owned second homes in France, of which 200,000 are owned by Brits.

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France’s embattled French president is proposing to raise £176 million with a third property tax specifically on holiday home ownership but, although he has said it is not about taxing foreigners, the new duty will not apply to people who have been tax resident in France for three of the past ten years which means that, apart from French people who live outside France, it won’t apply to – for example – Parisians with rural or coastal holiday homes.

Property owners in France already pay two taxes on their property. The first is the Taxe d’Habitation, which is variable, paid by the person living in the property (owner or tenant). The second,the Taxe Fonciere is also variable but always paid by the property’s owner regardless of how much they use it.
Part of the Taxe Fonciere documentation includes a ‘valeur locative cadastrale’ which is the average potential rental value of a property and the new tax will be 20% of this.

Pretty taxing: holiday homes in places like the Tarne et Garonne will soon face a third property tax on top of the two existing ones.

So let’s say you own a holiday home in Nice, use it from time to time but its ‘assessed’ rental value is €5,000 a year, then you’ll pay €1,000 or 20% of £5,000.

There are three groups of people who will be exempt from the tax, which is due to be introduced in January 2012. These are anyone who has signed up to a ‘leaseback’ arrangement with a company such as Pierres et Vacances; non-French who live in France permanently; and anyone who puts their property on the books of a local letting agent and therefore – in theory – makes it ‘available’ for rent year round.

This last exemption is in effect a loophole that would be impossible to police and may render is impossible to levy. But as an obstacle to the tax’s success it is nothing compared to the European Court.

Several legal groups have said they will challenge the new tax on the basis that, although not stated openly, in practice it will be a tax almost exclusively on foreigners and therefore illegal under European law.

Primelocation is sponsoring this year’s  International Property Awards in association with Bloomberg Television, the housing world’s answer to the Oscars with a red carpet event to be held on November 25th and 26th this year in central London. 

So could your next home end up with an international gong for its architecture, build quality or a range of other categories?

These awards may not offer the same glamour and stars as the yearly Oscars in Hollywood, but in many ways they are not far off with categories that include best golf development, international property, apartment and interior design.

The event began it began in 1994 and has developed into a global concern with regional heats held across the world during the build up to the final in London. This comes to a glamorous climax at an event attended by the leading lights of the property world and celebrities.

These in past years have included Rick Wakeman of 1970s supergroup Yes, BBC Royal Correspondent Jenny Bond, interiors expert Linda Barker and Location, Location, Location star Phil Spencer. And the awards have high profile sponsors too. As well as Primelocation.com these include newspaper The New York Times, Google, Bloomberg Television and Maserati.

But one thing that doesn’t change is the robust judging process. Every year the world’s industry experts gather to judge - including this time round Primelocation.com’s Nigel Lewis - whether the hundreds of entries from across the globe pass the quality test.

A wide range of residential and commercial properties are judged from grand villas in Dubai to office developments in Budapest, and previous winners have included UK agent Knight Frank, developer Berkeley Homes (for its Sugar House development in London) and the Dunas Douradas Beach Club on Portugal’s Algarve coast. But winners come from a wide range of countries including Panama, Brazil, India, Singapore, South Africa and Cape Verde.

Few of the adverts for overseas investment properties that lure you in with glossy pictures of slim models wallowing in pools next to whitewashed villas mention the less glamorous side of owning a buy-to-let property overseas.

There’s the local utility companies to deal with, the challenges of finding a reliable cleaner and gardener, footing unexpected repair bills and the often complicated local taxation regimes.

But one challenge that no one could predict is the mountain of weird or surprising items that holiday makers leave behind in rental properties overseas for landlords to clear up .

According to Owners Direct, one of the leading private holiday home rental websites, the items most often left behind are the ones you’d think holiday makers need to get home – money, passports, false teeth, vital medicines, travel documents and car and house keys.

But although leaving behind these essentials can have serious and  expensive consequences, other belongings left behind by holiday makers are obviously too embarrassing to take home or worth retrieving.

Items found by Owners Direct landlords in properties include a pair of Father Xmas trousers, a fake beard, a false leg, a bongo drum and a full sized rubber mask of George Bush.

And being a holiday home owner might appeal to those with a thirst for free alcohol – holiday makers regularly leave behind titanic caches of unconsumed booze rather than lug it all the way back home.

But perhaps the most surprising items left behind were the most generous. One owner said a customer of theirs replaced all the light bulbs in their property with low energy ones for free.