Garage owners, how to prepare your retirement

Are you one of those garage owners, and more generally those managers, who neglect their retirement ? If so, you are far from being the only one in this situation. This observation is not meant to be reassuring at all, it is there to alert you to your future situation. Many managers do not anticipate their retirement sufficiently and suffer the full force of the drop in their income. A successful retirement is an early retirement and procrastination is not the way to go. How to prepare for your retirement ?

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When to retire ?

The legal retirement age is the same for everyone, if you exclude beneficiaries of special schemes. So you can hang up your overalls and put away your toolbox at age 62. This does not mean that you will receive your full garage pension, you need to have contributed enough for that, as you can see in the table below.

If you do not have enough quarters, then you must continue your activity as a garage manager until 67. In fact, a manager not employed in the private sector who has not contributed the necessary number of quarters can only claim a pension from the age of 67. The calculation of the future pension is carried out without any penalty of reduction, i.e. discount, but in proportion to the number of quarters contributed.

With regard to quarters, the year of birth also comes into play. Thus, an entrepreneur born in 1955 will need to total 166 quarters (i.e. 41 years and 2 quarters) to enjoy a full rate pension, whereas one born in 1964 must gather 169 quarters (42 years and one quarter).

What pension for what status ?

Remember the creation of your car repair shop. You had to choose a legal status. This choice is far from trivial, as it has a direct consequence on the amount of your managerial pension.

The self-employed manager

The manager of a car garage is a self-employed person if he is the head of a EURL, an EIRL or if he is the majority manager of his SARL. The social security system for the self-employed manages your basic and supplementary pensions. They are calculated in the same way as for employees.

Beware, however, that the contributions remain lower than for an employee. It is therefore strongly recommended to anticipate the future drop in income. There are many complementary savings schemes to compensate for this and an asset adviser or a specialist insurer will be happy to assist you in your approach.

The salaried executive

A professional garage owner is treated as an employee if he or she is a minority manager of a limited liability company (SARL) or a director of a public limited company (SA) or a private limited company (SAS).

He is affiliated to the general pension scheme managed by the Assurance Retraite and to the Agirc-Arrco supplementary pension scheme. His pension is then calculated in the same way as for an employed executive. Even if the amount remains correct, it does not allow you to live large. A garage owner who is assimilated to a salaried employee is also exposed to a sudden drop in income and should not wait until the end of his or her working life to put in place complementary solutions.

How to prepare for retirement ?

We have devoted an entire article to the transfer of a car garage, and this is no accident. For an independent garage owner, preparing for retirement most of the time means finding a buyer for his garage and making sure to sell it as well as possible. The sum received from the sale often supplements the retirement pension to good effect.

Real estate investment is also a scheme that can prove very profitable for a car garage manager. You proceed to acquire, in your own name or through an SCI, the walls of your workshop. This way, when the time comes to sell the place, you only sell the business and remain the owner of the premises. You will then receive a property income.

An executive can also save from the beginning of his or her career and invest his or her money in life insurance or supplementary pension contracts. This investment is particularly reassuring and provides a substantial annuity for the subscriber.

Can a garage owner combine retirement with a new job ?

You already feel it, being the hyperactive person that you are, you will never be able to settle for a flat retirement at home. You're already thinking of taking up a professional activity, which will not only keep you busy, but will also provide you with a small but very appreciable additional income.

Combining employment and retirement is entirely possible, provided you meet certain conditions. Your new activity can remain in the field of car mechanics if you wish.

The conditions to be met in order to benefit from this scheme are as follows :

• compulsory liquidation of your retirement pensions (basic and supplementary) ;

• contacting your main pension fund the month following the resumption of activity ;

• transmission of supporting documents relating to the new activity.

Note that a self-employed person can continue to be self-employed or change their sector of activity completely.

To clear up all your doubts and questions, don't hesitate to consult the IRP website. The social protection group for automotive professionals supports employees, but also craftsmen and non-salaried workers (TNS) in the automotive branch in preparing their retirement.