Your father has just died in Leeds. He leaves a small terraced house, a lifetime of savings in NS&I Premium Bonds and bank accounts, and a will that names you and your sister as executors. You have lived near Lyon for six years. Your sister, who still lives in Manchester, tells you the British side is “all sorted” once probate comes through. Then a friend asks the question that ruins your sleep: will France tax you as well on the same inheritance? The short answer is yes, it can. Because your tax home is in France, the French tax office treats you as liable in France on the British assets you receive, even though the house and the money never leave England. The longer answer is reassuring: a treaty signed in 1963 between France and the United Kingdom stops most double taxation, the law gives you a credit for the British tax you pay, and close relatives benefit from generous allowances before any French bill arises. This article explains, step by step, when France taxes a British estate received by a French resident, which papers to file and by when, how the treaty credit works in practice with a worked example, what rates and allowances apply, how the forced share of children limits what an English will can do with any French property in the same estate, and how to challenge a bill that looks wrong.

I. Will France Tax the British Assets You Have Just Inherited, and What Must You File?

A. Why Living in France Can Make a Leeds House and English Savings Taxable in Paris

French inheritance tax is not called inheritance tax in the statute book. It belongs to a family of duties known as droits de mutation à titre gratuit, which means transfer duties on gifts and inheritances. The key provision is Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code. Its opening words set the tone for everything that follows: “Sont soumis aux droits de mutation à titre gratuit : 1° Les biens meubles et immeubles situés en France ou hors de France, et notamment les fonds publics, parts d’intérêts, biens ou droits composant un trust défini à l’article 792-0 bis et produits qui y sont capitalisés, créances et généralement toutes les valeurs mobilières françaises ou étrangères de quelque nature qu’elles soient, lorsque le donateur ou le défunt a son domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 B”. In plain English, where the deceased had his French tax home, known as the domicile fiscal, France taxes the worldwide estate, wherever the assets sit.

That covers the case where your father himself lived in France. But your father lived in Leeds, so the first paragraph does not catch you. The third paragraph does. The same article continues with a mirror rule for the heir: assets inside or outside France received by an heir, donee, legatee or trust beneficiary who has his tax home in France fall within French transfer duties. There is, however, an important time condition attached to this heir-based rule, stated at the end of Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code: “Toutefois, cette disposition ne s’applique que lorsque l’héritier, le donataire ou le bénéficiaire d’un trust a eu son domicile fiscal en France pendant au moins six années au cours des dix dernières années précédant celle au cours de laquelle il reçoit les biens.” In other words, France taxes you on the British estate only if you have been fiscally resident in France for at least six of the last ten years. With six years near Lyon, you meet that test. A British reader who moved to France eighteen months ago and inherits from a British parent would normally fall outside it, and only British-situated assets taxed under other rules would matter.

Whether you have your tax home in France depends on Article 4 B of the General Tax Code, which gives three alternative tests: “Sont considérées comme ayant leur domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 A : a. Les personnes qui ont en France leur foyer ou le lieu de leur séjour principal”. Your foyer means your permanent home, the place where your family life is centred; the séjour principal means the place where you spend most of your time, generally taken as more than 183 days a year. The same article adds two further tests: carrying on a professional activity in France, and having the centre of your economic interests in France. Meeting any one of the three is enough. Most British residents with a home, work or main bank accounts in France meet at least one. Note the closing safeguard of the article: a person who meets a domestic test is nevertheless not regarded as having a French tax home where an international double-tax treaty treats him as resident of the other country. The treaty tie-breaker can therefore rescue borderline cases, but a settled Lyon household will not be borderline.

One practical consequence follows directly. The French tax administration confirms in its official commentary on the France-United Kingdom succession convention that shares issued by companies headquartered in the United Kingdom remain subject to French tax under Article 750 ter where the heir meets the residence test. British shares, British bank balances, Premium Bond holdings and a Leeds house all sit in the same basket once the heir meets the six-year test: they support French tax, subject only to the treaty credit examined in Part II. Readers who already know our guide to British heirs of a French house and the allowances that cut the bill will recognise the mirror image. That guide dealt with French property passing to British heirs; this one deals with British property reaching a French-resident heir.

A short warning for families who hold British assets through a trust, which is an English arrangement with no exact French equivalent, in which a trustee administers property for beneficiaries. The commercial chamber of the Court of Cassation, the highest French court for tax disputes, held on 18 November 2020 in case number 18-14.242, published in its official bulletin and readable at the Court’s official page for that decision, that “En application de ce texte, le fait générateur des droits de mutation à titre gratuit est constitué par le transfert de propriété, qui, s’agissant de biens placés dans un trust, s’opère par l’effet de la distribution de l’actif du trust au bénéficiaire final, au jour de sa clôture, laquelle peut être postérieure au décès du constituant.” The triggering event is therefore the transfer of ownership, which for trust assets happens through distribution to the final beneficiary when the trust closes, possibly after the settlor’s death. If your father’s estate includes a trust, the French bill may arrive later than you expect, but it still arrives. Our separate analysis of English trusts, French declaration duties and the tax they trigger explains that mechanism in depth.

B. Which Papers to File, With Whom, and by When: Getting the Procedure Right

France requires a detailed written return for every taxable succession. Article 800 of the General Tax Code states the principle bluntly: “Les héritiers, légataires ou donataires, leurs tuteurs ou curateurs, sont tenus de souscrire une déclaration détaillée.” Heirs, legatees and donees must subscribe, meaning sign and file, a detailed declaration. The same article relieves small estates: direct-line heirs, a surviving spouse and a civil-registered partner are dispensed where the gross estate is below 50,000 euros and no earlier unregistered gift from the deceased exists, and other beneficiaries where the gross estate is below 3,000 euros. A Leeds house alone will normally exceed the first threshold, so expect to file.

The deadline is strict and depends on where the deceased died. Article 641 of the General Tax Code provides: “De six mois, à compter du jour du décès, lorsque celui dont on recueille la succession est décédé en France métropolitaine; D’une année, dans tous les autres cas.” Six months from the day of death where the person died in mainland France, one year in all other cases. Your father died in Leeds, so you have one year. Do not confuse this French filing deadline with the British timetable for paying Inheritance Tax and obtaining the grant of probate, the court document that authorises the executors to collect the English assets. The two timetables run in parallel. Start both at once.

The official public-service website confirms who files and who is excused on its page for declaration of succession duties, which lists the categories of filers and the means-tested exemptions, and it should be your first practical checklist alongside this article: see the service-public.fr page on declarations of succession. In practice the French return, known as form 2705 with its schedules, is filed with the tax office of the deceased’s last French home or, where the deceased never lived in France, with the specialised non-resident tax office. A French notaire, the public officer who settles estates in France, is not strictly mandatory for a purely British estate, but appointing one is usually wise: the notaire values the estate, computes the French assessment, claims the treaty credit, and keeps the proof that everything was declared. Readers facing their first French return may also want our walkthrough of how a newcomer’s first French tax declaration works and which forms to use, which explains the French filing reflexes that also apply here.

On the English side, the executors must value the estate, report it to HM Revenue and Customs where required, pay any Inheritance Tax due, and apply for the grant of probate before banks and the Land Registry release the assets. The British government explains the payment mechanics on the gov.uk page for paying an Inheritance Tax bill, and the thresholds and allowances on the gov.uk overview of how Inheritance Tax works, which confirms that no tax is due where the estate is below the £325,000 threshold and that the threshold can rise to £500,000 where a home passes to children or grandchildren. Keep every British assessment, receipt and probate document: the French credit for foreign tax paid is only granted against proof, and translations by a sworn translator, known in France as a traducteur assermenté, avoid arguments about what a British receipt says.

Late filing in France is expensive. Article 1728 of the General Tax Code imposes an uplift of “10 % en l’absence de mise en demeure ou en cas de dépôt de la déclaration ou de l’acte dans les trente jours suivant la réception d’une mise en demeure d’avoir à le produire dans ce délai”, rising to 40% where the return is still missing thirty days after a formal demand. Interest for late payment runs on top. Diarise the one-year date from the death, file even if valuations are provisional, and correct them later rather than missing the deadline.

II. How Do You Avoid Paying Twice, and How Do You Protect What Your Children Must Receive?

A. From Two Tax Bills to One: How the 1963 Treaty Credit Works for British Estates

France and the United Kingdom signed a convention on death duties on 21 June 1963. It still governs Franco-British successions, and Brexit did not repeal it. Its logic is simple: each country keeps the primary right to tax the assets most closely connected with it, and the country of the deceased’s domicile gives a credit for the tax paid in the other country. The tax administration’s official commentary explains the situs rules, meaning the rules that locate each asset, asset by asset: buildings are deemed situated where they stand, and the question whether property counts as immovable is answered under the law of the place where it stands, under Article 4 of the convention. A Leeds house is therefore taxable in the United Kingdom as of right, and France must relieve the double charge on it.

The relief mechanism is a tax credit, known in French as an imputation. Under Article 6 of the convention, as explained in the administration’s official commentary, where one state taxes property deemed situated in the other state, it deducts from its own tax on that property, computed under its domestic law and capped at that tax, a credit equal to the duty levied by the other state on the same property. Two limits matter enormously. First, the credit can never exceed the French tax on the same property: if Britain takes more than France would have taken on the Leeds house, the excess is not refunded. Second, the credit is property by property, not a global pot: British tax on the house cannot shelter French tax on the savings.

French domestic law mirrors the treaty. Article 784 A of the General Tax Code provides: “Dans les cas définis aux 1° et 3° de l’article 750 ter , le montant des droits de mutation à titre gratuit acquitté, le cas échéant, hors de France est imputable sur l’impôt exigible en France.” In the cases covered by paragraphs 1 and 3 of Article 750 ter, the transfer duties paid outside France are creditable against the tax due in France. The commentary adds that “Cette imputation est limitée à l’impôt acquitté sur les biens meubles et immeubles situés hors de France”, so the credit only covers tax paid on property outside France. British Inheritance Tax on the Leeds house and the English accounts qualifies; a British charge on a Paris flat would not.

Timing is the trap most families fall into. The treaty gives you five years, not forever. Under Article 7 of the convention, any claim for reduction or repayment must be presented within five years of the death, or within five years of the later event where the charge arises later, and any repayment is made without interest on the sum repaid. The administration will not pay you for its own delay, so file the credit claim as early as the British assessment allows, ideally with the French declaration itself, and pursue the balance by supplementary claim once the final British figures are known.

A worked example makes the mechanics concrete. Suppose your father’s estate leaves you a Leeds house valued at £260,000 and English savings of £60,000, £320,000 in total. British Inheritance Tax at 40% above the £325,000 threshold would, on these simplified figures and ignoring reliefs, produce little or no British tax if the whole estate passes within the nil-rate band, but take the harder case where the total British estate is £500,000 and £70,000 of British tax is assessed on your share. In France, you first add the worldwide share to your return, subtract your personal allowance, examined below, apply the progressive scale, and obtain a French assessment, say £45,000 equivalent on the British assets. The credit equals the British tax paid on the same assets but capped at the French tax on them: £45,000. Your French bill falls to zero, and the £25,000 British excess stays where it is. Reverse the figures, with £20,000 of British tax and £45,000 of French tax, and you pay £25,000 in France. Either way you never pay the full bill twice, but you always pay the higher of the two. That is why valuing each asset correctly and allocating the British tax asset by asset matters as much as the headline rates.

Practical sequencing therefore runs as follows. First, secure the British grant of probate and the British tax assessment. Second, file the French declaration within the one-year deadline, computing French tax on the worldwide share and claiming the credit for British tax already quantified, with a reservation for the balance. Third, once the final British receipts arrive, file the supplementary treaty claim within the five-year window, attaching the receipts, the probate, the valuation evidence and sworn translations. Fourth, check the assessment notice line by line: wrong exchange rate, omitted allowance, missing credit, or aggregation of old gifts beyond the legal look-back period are the four recurring errors, and each is challengeable.

B. What France Takes, What It Spares, and What Your Father’s English Will Cannot Change

French transfer duties are progressive: the larger the net share each beneficiary receives, the higher the marginal rate. Article 777 of the General Tax Code sets the scale, which in the direct line between parents and children runs from “N’excédant pas 8 072 € 5” up to “Au-delà de 1 805 677 € 45”, with intermediate bands at 10, 15, 20, 30 and 40%. Between brothers and sisters and between distant relatives the rates are harsher, reaching 55% and 60%. Before the scale applies, each beneficiary subtracts a personal allowance, known as an abattement. Article 779 of the General Tax Code grants the headline relief: “il est effectué un abattement de 100 000 € sur la part de chacun des ascendants et sur la part de chacun des enfants vivants ou représentés par suite de prédécès ou de renonciation”. Each living child deducts 100,000 euros from his share, and the allowance is split between representatives where a child predeceases. Brothers and sisters receive a far smaller allowance, and distant relatives almost none, which is why the family relationship calibrates the bill more than the asset values.

Spouses and civil partners are treated better still. Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code states: “Sont exonérés de droits de mutation par décès le conjoint survivant et le partenaire lié au défunt par un pacte civil de solidarité.” A surviving husband, wife or civil-registered partner pays no death duties. For a British couple in France, that exemption interacts usefully with lifetime gifts: our guide to gifting a French house to children by donation-partage and the 100,000 euro allowance explains how to move value down a generation at low cost while a spouse remains fully sheltered.

Beware the aggregation rule, known as the rappel des donations antérieures, the recall of earlier gifts. Article 784 of the General Tax Code obliges parties to disclose earlier gifts in every deed and every succession return, and provides that “La perception est effectuée en ajoutant à la valeur des biens compris dans la donation ou la déclaration de succession celle des biens qui ont fait l’objet de donations antérieures, à l’exception de celles passées depuis plus de quinze ans”. The assessment adds back earlier gifts except those made more than fifteen years ago. A £50,000 cash gift your father made you eight years ago therefore inflates the progressive bracket of today’s inheritance, though tax already paid on it is taken into account. Gifts older than fifteen years drop out of the picture entirely. List every gift with its date before the notaire computes the return; forgetting one looks like concealment and invites penalties.

Finally, an English will cannot do everything its author imagines where French-connected property is concerned. French law reserves a minimum share of the estate for children, called the réserve héréditaire, with only the remainder, the quotité disponible, freely disposable. Article 913 of the Civil Code fixes the disposable share: “Les libéralités, soit par actes entre vifs, soit par testament, ne pourront excéder la moitié des biens du disposant, s’il ne laisse à son décès qu’un enfant ; le tiers, s’il laisse deux enfants ; le quart, s’il en laisse trois ou un plus grand nombre.” Gifts and legacies may not exceed one half with one child, one third with two, one quarter with three or more. The Court of Cassation drew the consequence on 11 September 2013 in case number 12-11.694, available at the Court’s official page for that decision: “il résulte de ce texte qu’aucune disposition testamentaire ne peut modifier les droits que les héritiers réservataires tiennent de la loi”. No testamentary provision can alter the rights that reserved heirs derive from the law. Since 2021 the article adds a compensatory levy for children where the foreign law governing the succession offers no reserved-share mechanism and the deceased or a child was an EU national or habitually resident in the EU, allowing each child to take compensation from assets situated in France. An English will choosing English law, which our analysis of English wills, the choice of English law and the French notaire shows how to make effective, still cannot strip British children of that protection on French assets. For a purely British estate this matters less, but most Franco-British families hold property on both sides of the Channel, and the will must be drafted for both.

If the French assessment looks wrong, challenge it methodically. Start with a written claim to the tax office that issued the notice, attaching the British assessment and receipts, the probate with translation, the valuation evidence, the family record proving the relationship and the allowance, and the computation showing the correct credit. Most errors, a missing credit, a forgotten 100,000 euro allowance, gifts aggregated beyond fifteen years, or a wrong situs analysis, are corrected at this stage. If the administration maintains the bill, appeal to the competent court within the stated time limit, which the notice itself must mention: read it before anything else. Keep proof of every posting, calendar the five-year treaty deadline separately from the appeal deadline, and never let either expire while correspondence continues. A polite negotiating letter does not stop a limitation clock.

Conclusion

Inheriting a British estate while living in France adds a second tax system to a moment of grief, but it rarely adds a second full bill. Your French residence can pull the Leeds house and the English savings into French transfer duties once you meet the six-years-in-ten test, and the one-year declaration deadline runs from the death whether probate is finished or not. Against that, the 1963 treaty and Article 784 A give you a credit for the British tax paid on the same assets, capped at the French tax on them, claimable within five years; the 100,000 euro allowance per child, the spouse exemption and the progressive scale cut the French base before the credit even applies; and the aggregation of earlier gifts stops at fifteen years. Put the British probate papers and the French declaration on parallel tracks from day one, have a notaire compute the credit asset by asset, keep sworn translations of every British receipt, and challenge a wrong assessment first in writing and then before the court. Handled in that order, the British estate your father built up reaches you with one layer of tax, not two.