Overseas-housing relief: 18-month investment clock is literal

The Conseil d'État (9ème et 10ème chambres réunies, 30 September 2026Legifrance, n° 504667Legifrance) rejected the taxpayer's appealLegifrance and confirmed the recapture of an overseas-housing income-tax reduction claimed for 2014 under article 199 undecies C of the code général des impôts, with a supplementary 2016 assessment plus penalties left standingLegifrance. The taxpayer had subscribed in 2014 to shares in four sociétés civiles immobilièresLegifrance formed to acquire a dwelling in Martinique; the administration found the statutory reinvestment condition unmet in 2016. The Rennes tribunal rejected the discharge claim in May 2024 and the Nantes appeal court dismissed the appeal in March 2025.

The holding is a clean statement of the IV of article 199 undecies C in its applicable wording. Where eligible acquisition or construction is carried out through a qualifying company — a SCPI or any other article 8 company other than a société en participation whose shares are held directly or via a single-member EURL by French-resident taxpayers — the reduction is taken by the members in proportion to their rights for the subscription year; where the investment is construction or acquisition of a building to be built, the company must undertake to complete the foundations within two years of the subscription's closing and the building within two years of the foundations' completion. Two funding conditions apply side by side: 95% of the subscription must exclusively finance a qualifying investment, and the subscription proceeds must be intégralement investi within eighteen months of the subscription's closingLegifrance.

Applied here, only one investment had been made by the four SCIsLegifrance — the acquisition of an apartment on 29 December 2017, beyond the eighteen-month window after the 2014 subscriptionsLegifrance. That undisputed lateness alone legally justified the recapture. Critically, the fact that the SCIs had signed, on 2 September 2015, delegated project-management contracts (maîtrise d'ouvrage déléguée) with the company Procodom to find land, acquire it and build an F4 dwelling there was irrelevant: signing such a contract within the window is, by itself, without incidence on compliance with the eighteen-month actual-investment conditionLegifrance. The taxpayer's remaining grounds, directed at the judgment's other reasons, were therefore inopérant as aimed at superabundant reasoning, and his 3,000-euro claim under article L. 761-1 of the code de justice administrative fails with the appeal.

For structurers of article 199 undecies C SCI operations, the message is operational: calendar the eighteen-month deadline from the subscription's closing and ensure the proceeds are actually invested by then — a delegated project-management mandate signed in time does not stop the clock.

Legal basis: Conseil d'État, 9ème et 10ème chambres réunies, 30/09/2026, n° 504667 (ECLI:FR:CECHR:2026:504667.20260930); code général des impôts, article 199 undecies C-IV.