TL;DR: If a change in circumstances makes your self-certification inaccurate or unreliable, the financial institution must review the information relating to the account. For certain pre-existing accounts, particularly high-value accounts, this change may result in the account being reclassified and reported for the relevant States or territories.
What is a change in circumstances?
A change in circumstances is a situation that adds information about your status or creates a contradiction with information already known. It may also result from a change to, or the addition of, information concerning your account.
The self-certification ceases to be valid as soon as the financial institution knows, or has reason to know, that a change in circumstances calls its accuracy into question. Nor may it rely on a self-certification or documentary evidence that it knows, or has reason to know, is inaccurate or unreliable.
What must the financial institution do?
The financial institution must put in place channels and procedures enabling its customer-facing staff to detect changes in circumstances relating to an account.
When a change in circumstances calls the accuracy of the self-certification into question, it ceases to be valid and the financial institution must confirm its validity or obtain a new valid self-certification.
For an individual, if you change your residence during the year and cannot provide a certificate of residence issued by a public body, you may submit a sworn statement specifying the conditions of the change. This statement is valid only during the year in which it is signed.
What is the 90-day period?
For a pre-existing high-value individual account, the financial institution may choose to temporarily maintain the previous status during the 90 calendar days following the date on which the indicium was identified as a result of the change in circumstances.
If, at the end of this period, it can neither confirm the validity of the initial self-certification nor obtain a new valid self-certification, it must retain both the State or territory indicated in the initial self-certification and the one corresponding to the change in circumstances.
How are pre-existing accounts treated?
If you hold several pre-existing accounts with the same financial institution, documentary evidence provided after a change in circumstances may establish your residence for all of those accounts.
An initial self-certification also remains valid for accounts subsequently opened with the same financial institution, unless there is a change in circumstances.
For a pre-existing entity account, where the change makes the self-certification or another associated document implausible, the financial institution must redetermine the nature of the account in accordance with the applicable procedure.
What happens when indicia are present?
For a pre-existing high-value individual account, if the change in circumstances reveals one or more indicia linked to a State or territory, the financial institution must treat the account as reportable for each State or territory corresponding to an identified indicium. However, the mitigating measure provided for by Article 35 of Decree No. 2016-1683 may apply.
For an insurance contract with a cash value, the financial institution may use the residence address recorded in its files until a change in circumstances makes it inaccurate or unreliable. A full or partial payment, or the maturity of the contract, also constitutes a point triggering the applicable procedures.
Specific FATCA rule
Under the FATCA agreement between France and the United States, if a change in circumstances reveals one or more US indicia that remain unverifiable, the account must be treated as a reportable US account for the current year and subsequent years.
This classification ceases if you no longer fall within the category of specified US persons. For a deposit account, a specific rule may also apply when the balance or value does not exceed 50,000 dollars.