The English grant of probate has arrived. The French house, the Paris flat or the bank account in France stays frozen. The notaire (the French public officer who handles property transfers and estates) has written to say that a United Kingdom grant is not a French title to administer, that an acte de notoriété (a notarial affidavit of heirship) is missing, or that a UK will cannot be “executed” on French assets until it has been registered. Bereaved families often hear this as a refusal of the English court. It is usually something more precise, and more French: since Brexit the United Kingdom issues no European Certificate of Succession, French law seises the heirs by operation of law, and a foreign will has to pass the registration filter in article 1000 of the Code civil (the French Civil Code) before it can be carried out on property situated in France.

This article is for British executors and beneficiaries who hold, or have been told to obtain, a UK grant of probate or letters of administration, and who now face a French notary who will not treat that grant as enough. It does not cover the purchase of French property, which belongs to another desk, nor which succession law applies to a British resident who dies in France — see the cabinet’s note on forced heirship and the choice of law. The crisis here is narrower: the estate is blocked and the family needs to know which document unlocks the French assets, which tax registration is due, and what to do if the notary will not proceed. The answers sit in the Civil Code, the General Tax Code, and Cour de cassation (the French Court of Cassation) decisions holding that even a European Certificate of Succession is not an enforceable title.

I. Why will the French notaire not treat my UK grant of probate as enough after Brexit?

A. Does French law give heirs the estate automatically, unlike English probate?

English probate and French saisine (the automatic vesting of the estate in the heirs) are not two labels for the same idea. In England and Wales, the deceased’s estate does not pass straight to the beneficiaries. A personal representative — an executor named in the will, or an administrator where there is no will or the executor cannot act — must obtain a grant from the Probate Registry. Until that grant is extracted, there is in principle no one who can give a good receipt for UK assets or convey UK land. GOV.UK’s own guidance, “Applying for probate”, describes that English machinery: you apply for probate, you may need to stop a competing application, and you value the estate for HM Revenue and Customs. That is the document British families bring to France, expecting it to speak with the same authority on a house in the Dordogne or a studio in the 16th arrondissement.

French law starts somewhere else. Article 720 of the Civil Code states: “Les successions s’ouvrent par la mort, au dernier domicile du défunt.” The estate is opened by death, at the last domicile of the deceased. There is no French equivalent of waiting for a court to clothe a personal representative with title. Article 724 of the Civil Code then provides: “Les héritiers désignés par la loi sont saisis de plein droit des biens, droits et actions du défunt.” The heirs designated by the law are seised as of right of the deceased’s property, rights and actions. Universal legatees and universal donees are seised on the conditions of Title II of the same book; failing them, the State must be sent into possession. The contrast with English probate is structural. The French heir does not wait for a grant in order to exist as heir. He or she is seised, and must then prove that quality.

The Cour de cassation has treated that seisin as a real power to act, not a metaphor. In a decision of 13 September 2017, pourvoi n° 15-25.703, the first civil chamber quashed a court of appeal which had declared a surviving spouse inadmissible to continue an action, after citing article 724 in these terms: “Vu l’article 724 du code civil ; Attendu que le conjoint survivant, investi de la saisine sur l’universalité de l’hérédité, dispose des droits et actions du défunt.” The surviving spouse, invested with seisin over the universality of the inheritance, has the deceased’s rights and actions. The case was a French matrimonial-property liquidation, not a Franco-British estate, and it cannot be stretched into a ruling on UK grants. What it does confirm, in the Court’s own words, is that seisin under article 724 is the source of the heir’s standing. That is why a French notary looks for proof of heirship, not for an English-style appointment of a personal representative.

French law does know an exécuteur testamentaire (a testamentary executor). Article 1025 of the Civil Code states: “Le testateur peut nommer un ou plusieurs exécuteurs testamentaires jouissant de la pleine capacité civile pour veiller ou procéder à l’exécution de ses volontés.” The testator may appoint one or more executors with full legal capacity to watch over or carry out his or her wishes. That person is not, by the fact of appointment, seised of the estate in the English sense. The mission can be taken away. Article 1026 of the Civil Code states: “L’exécuteur testamentaire peut être relevé de sa mission pour motifs graves par le tribunal.” The executor may be relieved of the mission for serious grounds by the court. A UK grant of probate, which under English law vests the estate in the personal representative, therefore answers a question French law does not ask in the same way. The notary who says “this grant does not make you the owner of the French house” is not being obstructive for the sake of it. He is reading articles 720, 724 and 1025 as they are written.

Proof of the quality of heir is a separate step from seisin. Article 730 of the Civil Code states: “La preuve de la qualité d’héritier s’établit par tous moyens.” Proof of the quality of heir is established by any means. The same article adds that this does not derogate from the provisions or usages concerning the issue of certificates of ownership or of heirship by judicial or administrative authorities. A UK grant can be one piece of evidence among others. It is not, in French law, a substitute for the notarial instrument which the Code itself organises in the next article.

B. Is a UK grant of probate a European Certificate of Succession or a French acte de notoriété?

Two documents are regularly confused with a UK grant, and Brexit has made the confusion expensive. The first is the European Certificate of Succession created by Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of 4 July 2012. That certificate is issued by the authorities of a Member State. The United Kingdom is not a Member State. A grant extracted in London, Edinburgh or Belfast is not a European Certificate of Succession, and no amount of apostille or sworn translation can turn it into one. Families who remember the pre-Brexit years, when some cross-border files moved on a European certificate, are meeting that limit for the first time at the notary’s desk.

Even if the family held a genuine European Certificate of Succession issued in another Member State, French law would still not treat it as a magic key. On 13 April 2022 the Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, pourvoi n° 20-23.530, published in the Bulletin, rejected a German heir’s attempt to force a French bank to release funds on the strength of a European Certificate of Succession, without first registering the foreign will. The Court’s own reply, at paragraph 7 of the judgment, is in these terms: “La cour d’appel a justement retenu que, conformément au considérant 71 du règlement UE n° 650/2012 du 4 juillet 2012, le certificat successoral européen avait une efficacité probatoire mais ne constituait pas un titre exécutoire, de sorte que, s’il attestait de la qualité et des droits d’héritier, il n’épuisait pas nécessairement les formalités à mettre en oeuvre pour obtenir l’exécution de ces droits.” The European certificate had evidential effect but was not an enforceable title; if it attested the quality and rights of heir, it did not necessarily exhaust the formalities needed to obtain execution of those rights. The decision can be read on the Court’s site at Cour de cassation, 13 April 2022, n° 20-23.530. A UK grant, which is not even that certificate, cannot be expected to do more.

The second document is the French acte de notoriété. Article 730-1 of the Civil Code states: “La preuve de la qualité d’héritier peut résulter d’un acte de notoriété dressé par un notaire, à la demande d’un ou plusieurs ayants droit.” Proof of the quality of heir may result from an acte de notoriété drawn up by a notary, at the request of one or more persons entitled. The same article requires the instrument to refer to the death certificate, to mention the supporting documents produced — civil-status acts and, where relevant, documents concerning gifts on death which may affect the devolution — and to contain the signed affirmation of the applicants that they are entitled, alone or with others whom they name, to take all or part of the estate. Anyone whose statements appear useful may be called to the act. A mention is made in the margin of the death certificate. That is a French notarial instrument, drawn in French form, on French supporting papers. A UK grant of probate is not that instrument.

Once drawn, the acte de notoriété has a defined evidential force. Article 730-3 of the Civil Code states: “L’acte de notoriété ainsi établi fait foi jusqu’à preuve contraire. Celui qui s’en prévaut est présumé avoir des droits héréditaires dans la proportion qui s’y trouve indiquée.” The acte de notoriété so established is authentic until proof to the contrary. The person who relies on it is presumed to have hereditary rights in the proportion indicated in it. Service-Public, in the fiche “Comment prouver que l’on est héritier d’une succession (attestation, acte de notoriété) ?” (F12697, checked 1 January 2026), summarises the domestic French choice as an attestation signed by all the heirs or an acte de notoriété. That fiche does not mention a UK grant of probate, and it does not mention Brexit. That is the gap the British family is standing in. The notary who asks for an acte de notoriété is asking for the instrument to which articles 730-1 and 730-3 attach a presumption. He is not obliged, by those articles, to treat the English grant as that instrument.

Jurisdiction over the succession is a further, separate question, and it is easy to misread the case law. On 21 September 2022 the Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, pourvoi n° 19-15.438, published in the Bulletin, held that the French courts were competent over the whole of a succession even though the court of appeal had located the deceased’s habitual residence in the United Kingdom. The deceased was a French national who owned assets in France. At paragraph 10 the Court recorded: “Pour déclarer la juridiction française incompétente pour statuer sur la succession de [Y] [H] et désigner un mandataire successoral, l’arrêt retient que la résidence habituelle du défunt était située au Royaume-Uni.” At paragraph 11 it held that the court of appeal had thereby violated the subsidiary jurisdiction rule, because its own findings showed French nationality and assets in France. At paragraph 14 it added: “La cour d’appel ayant constaté que [Y] [H] avait la nationalité française et possédait des biens situés en France, les juridictions françaises sont donc compétentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble de sa succession en application de l’article 10, § 1, sous a), du Règlement (UE) n° 650/2012 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 4 juillet 2012.” The judgment is at Cour de cassation, 21 September 2022, n° 19-15.438. That ruling is not a general statement that every British estate with a French house belongs to the French courts. Article 10, § 1, under a), as applied in that case, turned on the deceased’s French nationality. A British-only deceased who was habitually resident in the United Kingdom, leaving only a holiday home in France, raises a different connecting factor, which must be examined on its own facts. What the decision does show, for the British family, is that a UK habitual residence does not, of itself, make a French notary or a French court disappear from the file when there are French assets and a relevant link to France.

The notary’s “refusal” of the UK grant is therefore usually a classification, not a diplomatic incident. The grant is evidence of what an English court has done under English law. It is not a European Certificate of Succession. It is not an acte de notoriété. It does not, without more, execute a UK will on French immovables. The next question is what the family must actually produce, and how to move the file if the notary still will not.

II. How can British heirs unlock the French estate when the notaire has refused the UK grant?

A. What documents must I register and produce for the French assets?

Where there is a UK will which is to have effect on property situated in France, registration is not a courtesy. Article 1000 of the Civil Code states: “Les testaments faits en pays étranger ne pourront être exécutés sur les biens situés en France qu’après avoir été enregistrés au bureau du domicile du testateur, s’il en a conservé un, sinon au bureau de son dernier domicile connu en France ; et, dans le cas où le testament contiendrait des dispositions d’immeubles qui y seraient situés, il devra être, en outre, enregistré au bureau de la situation de ces immeubles, sans qu’il puisse être exigé un double droit.” Wills made in a foreign country cannot be executed on property situated in France until they have been registered at the office of the testator’s domicile, if he or she has kept one, otherwise at the office of the last known domicile in France; and if the will contains dispositions of immovables situated in France, it must also be registered at the office of the situation of those immovables, without a double duty being demanded.

The tax code repeats the same filter in almost the same words. Article 655 of the Code général des impôts (the French General Tax Code) states: “Les testaments faits en pays étrangers ne peuvent être exécutés sur les biens situés en France, qu’après avoir été enregistrés au service des impôts du domicile du testateur, s’il en a conservé un, sinon à celui de son dernier domicile connu en France ; et dans le cas où le testament contient des dispositions d’immeubles qui y sont situés, il doit être, en outre, enregistré au service des impôts de la situation de ces immeubles, sans que les pénalités prévues aux articles 1727 et suivants soient applicables.” The fiscal article names the tax office rather than the “bureau”, and it excludes the penalties of articles 1727 and following. The civil article and the fiscal article must be read together. A UK will that has been admitted to probate in England is still, for these texts, a will made in a foreign country. Until it is registered in France, it “ne pourront être exécutés” / “ne peuvent être exécutés” on French assets: they cannot be executed there.

The Cour de cassation has refused to treat European succession machinery as a waiver of that registration. In the same 13 April 2022 decision, n° 20-23.530, the Court held at paragraph 8 that the court of appeal had been right to treat articles 1000 of the Civil Code and 655 of the General Tax Code as a tax formality, because the formality belongs to the tax administration and gives rise to a fixed duty of 125 euros. At paragraph 9 it added: “Elle en exactement déduit que l’exigence d’enregistrement de tout testament établi à l’étranger, qui ne remettait pas en cause l’efficacité probatoire du certificat successoral européen et ne constituait pas une condition d’exécution des testaments prohibée par le Règlement, ne portait pas atteinte au principe d’application directe du règlement ni ne le privait de son effet utile.” The requirement to register every will made abroad did not undermine the evidential effect of the European certificate and was not a condition of execution of wills prohibited by the Regulation. If that is the law for a European certificate issued in Germany, it is the law a fortiori for a UK grant issued after Brexit, which does not even enter the Regulation’s certificate scheme. The notary who will not complete a French sale, a French transfer or a French release of funds until article 1000 has been satisfied is applying a text the Court of Cassation has treated as a surviving national formality.

The acte de notoriété then has to be built on French-usable papers. Article 730-1 lists what the instrument must contain: the death, the supporting documents, the signed affirmation of vocation to the estate. In a Franco-British file those supporting documents typically include the French or UK death certificate, the UK will in a sworn French translation, evidence of the family (marriage, civil partnership, children), and, where the deceased lived in France, evidence of last domicile. A UK grant of probate, apostilled and translated, can be produced as a document “qui concernent l’existence de libéralités à cause de mort” within the meaning of article 730-1, because it is the English court’s confirmation of the will. It remains a supporting document. It is not the acte itself. Service-Public’s fiche F12697, already cited, still presents the French-domestic alternatives of a signed attestation of heirs or an acte de notoriété. For an estate with a French immovable, or with a dispute, or with a foreign will, the notarial route is the one that article 730-3 then clothes with a presumption until proof to the contrary.

Public documents issued in the United Kingdom are not used in France in their raw English form. Service-Public’s fiche “Légalisation d’un acte public établi par une autorité étrangère” (F1402, checked 30 October 2025) explains the legalisation of a foreign public act, the need for translation, the authority to approach, the time limit, and how to challenge a refusal of legalisation. The United Kingdom and France are both parties to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961, so the usual path for a UK grant is an apostille rather than a full consular legalisation, followed by a sworn translation into French. The precise apostille office is a UK matter, described on GOV.UK; the French notary will not complete the acte de notoriété on an untranslated English grant. Families should not confuse that legalisation step with the article 1000 registration step. One authenticates the foreign public document. The other is the fiscal and civil condition for executing a foreign will on French assets. Both can be required. Neither is performed by extracting probate in the United Kingdom.

Two related French files should not be allowed to cannibalise this one. If the only blocked asset is a French bank account, the cabinet has already set out the bank’s duties when a British resident dies, in the note on a blocked account and the release of funds. If the fight is about French inheritance tax, a life-insurance payout, or forced heirship, those are different claims, with different texts. The notary who refuses the UK grant is usually asking for the 730-1 instrument and the 1000 registration, not for a second English lawsuit. The family that arrives with only the grant, and with no translated will, no death certificate usable in France, and no application to register, is asking the notary to skip two statutes the Cour de cassation has not skipped.

Option successorale — the choice to accept the French succession outright, accept it up to the net assets, or renounce it — is a further French act which a UK grant does not perform. Service-Public’s fiche “Accepter ou renoncer à la succession (option successorale)” (F1199, checked 1 January 2026) sets out the options, the time limits, and the fact that the choice is in principle definitive. A British executor who has already intermeddled with UK assets under the grant has not, by that fact, accepted the French succession. Acceptance, inventory and renunciation remain French-form acts, often received by the same notary who is being asked to draw the acte de notoriété. Mixing the English personal representative’s authority with a silent acceptance of a French estate is a way to inherit French debts as well as French land. The notary who slows the file to put that choice on the table is not inventing a difficulty.

B. How do I challenge a notaire who still refuses to proceed?

Not every delay is a refusal, and not every refusal is unlawful. The notary who asks for a death certificate, a translated will, registration under article 1000, or an affirmation of heirship under article 730-1 is asking for what those articles name. The notary who will not explain which document is missing, who treats the UK grant as “invalid” as if an English court had no existence, or who declines to draw an acte de notoriété although an ayant droit has requested it under article 730-1, is in a different position. Article 730-1 is written as a faculty: proof “peut résulter” of an acte de notoriété drawn “à la demande d’un ou plusieurs ayants droit”. One person entitled may request it. The instrument is not a privilege of the English executor. A beneficiary who is an heir in French law can instruct a notary even if the UK personal representative is still collecting papers in Britain.

The first practical step is therefore to put the request in writing, in French, identifying the deceased, the French assets, the UK grant as a supporting document, and the demand that an acte de notoriété be drawn under article 730-1, and that any UK will be presented for registration under article 1000 and article 655. The letter should enclose the apostilled grant, the sworn translation, the death certificate, and the will. If the notary still will not proceed, a second notary may be instructed. Nothing in articles 730 or 730-1 gives a monopoly to the first office that opened a file. Service-Public’s fiche “Le recours à un notaire est-il obligatoire dans le cadre d’une succession ?” (F1295, checked 1 January 2026) reminds readers that a notary is compulsory in some successions and not in others; where French immovables have to be transferred, notarial form is in practice unavoidable. Changing notary is often faster than arguing with an office that has already labelled the UK grant as useless.

Where the dispute is about who the heirs are, the acte de notoriété is only a presumption. Article 730-3 says it is authentic until proof to the contrary. A disappointed relative, a child omitted from a UK will, or a person who says the deceased was habitually resident in France and that French forced heirship applies, can bring that contradiction before the tribunal judiciaire (the French judicial court). That is the moment at which the cabinet’s separate analysis of the UK will and forced heirship becomes the main file, rather than the probate-document file. The notary should not be asked to decide a choice-of-law battle that belongs to the court. Conversely, the court should not be seised only because the family has not yet registered the will or asked for an acte de notoriété. The two recourses have different objects.

Where French courts do have jurisdiction, they can appoint a mandataire successoral (an estate representative) and they can deal with the succession as a whole. That is what the Cour de cassation actually did in the 21 September 2022 decision: it set aside the Versailles court of appeal, held that the French courts were competent, and confirmed an order of the president of the tribunal de grande instance of Nanterre made in the form of référé (urgent proceedings). The United Kingdom connection in that case was the widow’s domicile in the United Kingdom and a debate about habitual residence. The Court’s dispositif is not a model order for every British holiday home, but it is a warning against the idea that “the estate is English, so France must wait”. A family that needs a French court order because heirs cannot agree, or because a notary will not act in the face of a genuine dispute, can apply to the tribunal judiciaire of the last domicile, or, in a Paris and Île-de-France file, to the tribunal judiciaire de Paris or the court of the last French domicile in the Paris region. The chambre des notaires of Paris can also be asked to help identify an office willing to instrument. Those are local channels. They do not rewrite articles 724, 730-1 or 1000.

A UK grant remains useful. It is often the cleanest proof that an English court has admitted the will, appointed the personal representative, and allowed that person to collect UK assets. French banks, French buyers and French land registries, however, take their orders from French instruments. The Cour de cassation’s paragraph 7 in n° 20-23.530 is the sentence to keep on the file: even a European certificate “n’épuisait pas nécessairement les formalités à mettre en oeuvre pour obtenir l’exécution de ces droits”. After Brexit, the UK grant is one formality among others, not the last word. The family that registers the will, obtains the acte de notoriété, and keeps the apostille and the translation in the notary’s deed packet is not “conceding” that English probate is worthless. It is putting the English document in the only place French law has made for it: among the pièces justificatives of article 730-1, after the filter of article 1000.

If the notary’s difficulty is in truth a tax difficulty — undeclared UK accounts, an inheritance-tax return, a life-insurance declaration — those issues must be named as such. Mixing them into a pretended defect of the UK grant wastes months. The cabinet’s notes on a UK life-insurance payout and French inheritance tax and on bank accounts of a deceased British resident are the place for those questions. The present file stops at the door of the notary’s instrument: seisin, proof of heirship, registration of the foreign will, and the court’s residual power when the heirs cannot be agreed or the connecting factor with France is contested.

Conclusion

A UK grant of probate is a serious English court document. It is not a French acte de notoriété, it is not a European Certificate of Succession, and it does not, by itself, execute a UK will on property situated in France. Article 724 seises the heirs. Articles 730 and 730-1 organise the proof of that quality, and article 730-3 gives the notarial affidavit a presumption until proof to the contrary. Articles 1000 of the Civil Code and 655 of the General Tax Code still require a will made abroad to be registered before it can be executed on French assets, a filter the Cour de cassation accepted on 13 April 2022 even in the presence of a European certificate. Brexit has not created that filter. It has removed the temptation to believe that a European certificate issued in the United Kingdom would have papered over it. The British family whose notary has “refused” the grant should stop arguing about the dignity of the English court and start producing the French instruments: an apostilled, translated grant as a supporting paper, a registered will, and an acte de notoriété requested by an ayant droit. If the notary still will not draw that act, another notary can be instructed, and in a genuine dispute the tribunal judiciaire can be seised. That is how the French house is unlocked. It is slower than sliding a London grant across a desk. It is the method the Civil Code actually writes.

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