You have found the stone farmhouse in the Dordogne, or the flat near the sea in Brittany, and the estate agent asks a question no English buyer expects: do you want to buy it directly in your own names, or through an société civile immobilière, a French non-trading property company universally known by its initials, SCI? For British families buying after Brexit, the question matters more than ever. You are now third-country nationals, your children may live on opposite sides of the Channel, your tax residence may straddle two systems, and the wrong holding structure can turn a holiday home into a yearly administrative burden, a painful family dispute or an avoidable tax bill.

This guide explains, for a British reader with no French legal training, what an SCI is, how a British family creates and runs one from London after Brexit, what happens when co-owners fall out or the manager resigns, how the rent, the capital gain and the wealth tax are actually taxed, how the shares pass to your children, and how to challenge a bill or a refusal when the administration gets it wrong. Every French term is explained the first time it appears. The legal references are the actual texts: the Civil Code (Code civil), the Tax Code (Code général des impôts) and two recent decisions of the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation), France’s supreme court for civil matters, with the decisive passages quoted word for word.

If your difficulty is the yearly SCI tax return rather than the choice of structure itself, the companion guide on the late SCI 2072 return for British families covers deadlines, penalties and how to regularise. If you already own French property directly and worry about wealth tax, read also the guide on IFI wealth tax for British owners, and if you are selling rather than buying, the guide on capital gains on the sale of a French house. If the deeper question is which national law governs your whole estate, the guide on choosing English law for your succession completes this one.

I. Should a British family buy a French house through an SCI after Brexit?

A. How do you create and run an SCI from London after Brexit?

An SCI is a company with a civil, non-commercial character whose purpose is to own and manage property. The Civil Code states the foundation plainly: “Les dispositions du présent chapitre sont applicables à toutes les sociétés civiles, à moins qu’il n’y soit dérogé par le statut légal particulier auquel certaines d’entre elles sont assujetties. Ont le caractère civil toutes les sociétés auxquelles la loi n’attribue pas un autre caractère à raison de leur forme, de leur nature, ou de leur objet” (Article 1845, Code civil). In ordinary language, a company is civil when neither its legal form, nor its nature, nor its purpose makes it commercial. Owning a house, collecting unfurnished rent and passing the shares to your children is civil. Running a hotel, a building trade or a furnished-holiday business at scale is not, and that boundary decides much of the tax treatment discussed in Part II.

Creation follows four practical steps, and Brexit changes none of them in principle because French company law does not reserve the SCI to European nationals. First, the family signs the statuts, the articles of association, before a notaire, the French public officer who authenticates property transactions, or under private signature for the company itself combined with a notarised purchase deed for the house. The statuts name the gérant, the manager, fix the registered office (siège social), describe each contribution in cash or in kind, allocate the parts sociales, the company shares, and organise decisions: who can sell, who must approve a new associate through agrément, the consent clause, what majority borrows or sells, and what happens on death or divorce. Second, the formation is advertised in a legal gazette (journal d’annonces légales) and the company is registered with the trade and companies register (registre du commerce et des sociétés), which gives it legal personality. Third, the SCI opens a French bank account, obtains a SIREN number and registers for tax. Fourth, the SCI buys the house: the price is paid by the company, the deed names the SCI as purchaser, and each family member owns shares, not bricks. British parents in London can be associates and even managers without living in France; powers of attorney (procurations) allow signature at distance, and since 2021 many British buyers complete through a French bank account opened after proving identity, address and tax residence, a procedure described in the firm’s guide on the right to an account.

The clauses that matter most for a British family are the ones English buyers skim. The agrément clause controls who enters the company: without it, shares can pass to former spouses’ new partners or to a child’s creditors. The management clause decides whether one parent alone can sign a lease, borrow or sell; consider requiring joint signature above a threshold. The pre-emption and buyout clause (clause de préemption) sets how a departing sibling’s shares are valued and who may buy them, ideally by reference to an independent valuation rather than a fixed formula that ages badly. The duration clause is typically ninety-nine years, which avoids accidental dissolution. The bank clause should authorise borrowing and mortgaging (hypothèque), because some lenders refuse files where the manager lacks express borrowing power. Spend an afternoon on these pages now and you save your children years of litigation later.

Three warnings must be stated bluntly before you sign. First, associates of an SCI are liable for the company’s debts indefinitely and in proportion to their holdings. The Code provides: “A l’égard des tiers, les associés répondent indéfiniment des dettes sociales à proportion de leur part dans le capital social à la date de l’exigibilité ou au jour de la cessation des paiements. L’associé qui n’a apporté que son industrie est tenu comme celui dont la participation dans le capital social est la plus faible” (Article 1857, Code civil). In plain English, if the SCI borrows to renovate and defaults, the bank can pursue each associate beyond the shares, each for their proportion. An SCI is not a limited company, and a British buyer used to the shield of an English limited company must reset that expectation completely.

Second, the SCI must stay civil. If it lets the Dordogne farmhouse furnished year after year with hotel-type services, or buys and resells houses for profit, the tax administration can reclassify it as commercial, which pushes it into corporation tax and reshapes everything. Families who want a genuine gîte, a furnished holiday cottage, business should take advice before routing it through the SCI, or hold the trading activity separately. Third, running costs are real: yearly accounts, the 2072 return, the bank, the insurance, the manager’s time. A couple buying a single small flat for their own holidays, with no children to organise and no letting, will often do better owning directly. The SCI earns its keep when several people share one house across generations, when parents want to give shares gradually to children while keeping control, or when the family wants to organise buyouts without selling the bricks each time someone’s life changes.

B. What happens when British co-owners fall out or the manager leaves?

Shared houses test families. One sibling lives in the house all summer and pays nothing; another in Manchester pays the roof repairs; the London-based manager stops answering emails; nobody can agree to sell. French law anticipates exactly this, and the remedies differ depending on whether the house is owned directly in indivision, the joint ownership that follows an inheritance, or through an SCI. Inside an SCI, you do not partition the house; you deal in shares, in management and in membership. That single difference explains why British families accept the SCI’s paperwork: it replaces the forced sale of the bricks with procedures over the paper.

Start with management. The manager represents the company, signs the leases, pays the taxe foncière, the local property tax, and files the returns. When the manager resigns, dies or simply stops acting, the company is headless, and any associate can ask the president of the tribunal judiciaire, the ordinary civil court, to appoint a mandataire, a court-appointed agent, solely to convene the associates and appoint a new manager. Where the paralysis runs deeper than a vacancy, an associate can seek an administrateur provisoire, a provisional administrator who temporarily runs the company. The Court of Cassation polices this remedy strictly. In a much-cited decision of 16 November 2017 concerning two family companies left without a manager, the Third Civil Chamber quashed an appeal ruling that had treated the bare vacancy as enough, holding: “sans rechercher, comme il le lui était demandé, si les sociétés ne fonctionnaient pas sans difficulté en dépit de la vacance de droit de la gérance et sans s’expliquer sur les « difficultés » qu’elles retenait, la cour d’appel a privé sa décision de base légale au regard du texte susvisé” (Cass. 3e civ., 16 Nov. 2017, pourvoi n° A 16-23.685, arrêt n° 1160 F-D), rendered on the visa of “Vu l’article 1846 du code civil”. In plain terms, a British family must prove a genuine, serious dysfunction paralysing the company, not merely an empty manager’s chair or background grumbling between siblings. Gather the evidence before applying: unpaid bills, blocked accounts, a lapsed insurance policy, refused access, a failed general meeting with minutes to prove it.

Next, departure. A sibling who emigrates to Australia, divorces, or simply wants out can leave without forcing the sale of the house, because the Code organises withdrawal: “Sans préjudice des droits des tiers, un associé peut se retirer totalement ou partiellement de la société, dans les conditions prévues par les statuts ou, à défaut, après autorisation donnée par une décision unanime des autres associés. Ce retrait peut également être autorisé pour justes motifs par une décision de justice. A moins qu’il ne soit fait application de l’article 1844-9 (3ème alinéa), l’associé qui se retire a droit au remboursement de la valeur de ses droits sociaux, fixée, à défaut d’accord amiable, conformément à l’article 1843-4” (Article 1869, Code civil). Read that as a ladder: your statuts first, unanimous consent second, a court order for justes motifs, serious grounds, third. Serious grounds in the case law include lasting disagreement making common management impossible, a move abroad that ends any participation, or exclusion dynamics. The withdrawing associate is then bought out at the value of the shares, agreed amicably or fixed by expert valuation, and the house stays in the company.

Valuation is where families quarrel most, and here a recent supreme ruling helps British buyers more than any other. Under the valuation article, “I. – Dans les cas où la loi renvoie au présent article pour fixer les conditions de prix d’une cession des droits sociaux d’un associé, ou le rachat de ceux-ci par la société, la valeur de ces droits est déterminée, en cas de contestation, par un expert désigné, soit par les parties, soit à défaut d’accord entre elles, par jugement du président du tribunal judiciaire ou du tribunal de commerce compétent, statuant selon la procédure accélérée au fond et sans recours possible. L’expert ainsi désigné est tenu d’appliquer, lorsqu’elles existent, les règles et modalités de détermination de la valeur prévues par les statuts de la société ou par toute convention liant les parties” (Article 1843-4, Code civil). On 7 May 2025 the Commercial Chamber drew the full consequence: “Il résulte de ce texte que l’expert peut, afin de ne pas retarder le cours de ses opérations, retenir différentes évaluations correspondant aux interprétations de la convention respectivement revendiquées par les parties, à charge pour le juge, après avoir procédé à la recherche nécessaire de la commune intention des parties, d’appliquer l’évaluation correspondante, laquelle s’impose alors à lui” (Cass. com., 7 May 2025, pourvoi n° H 23-24.041, arrêt n° 250 F-B). The expert values; the judge later interprets the disputed agreement and picks the matching valuation. Neither may hijack the other’s role, and an appeal court that orders the expert to stop and wait for a judge’s interpretation exceeds its powers. For a British family this means: draft the valuation clause clearly now, let the expert work even when siblings disagree about what the clause means, and keep the interpretation fight for the court file with evidence of what everyone originally intended.

Practically, organise the exit before anyone needs it. Call the general meeting properly with notice and an agenda, minute every decision, keep the accounts current so the expert has material to value, and put any buyout offer in writing with a deadline. If a sibling refuses all dialogue, the combination of a withdrawal claim for serious grounds and an expert valuation usually produces a price and an order where shouting produced nothing. And if the family concludes the SCI itself has run its course, dissolution and partition of the proceeds remain available as a last resort, with the shares, not the roof, as the unit of account throughout.

II. How is an SCI taxed and passed on when the owners are British?

A. Where are the rent, the capital gain and the wealth tax actually paid?

Tax is where British buyers make the expensive mistakes, usually by assuming that an English reading of the structure governs in France. By default a family SCI that only owns and lets unfurnished is translucide, transparent for income tax: the company does not pay the tax, each associate declares their share of the rent in their own return. The Tax Code frames it as follows: “Il en est de même, sous les mêmes conditions : 1° Des membres des sociétés civiles qui ne revêtent pas, en droit ou en fait, l’une des formes de sociétés visées au 1 de l’article 206 et qui, sous réserve des exceptions prévues à l’article 239 ter , ne se livrent pas à une exploitation ou à des opérations visées aux articles 34 et 35” (Article 8, Code général des impôts). Unfurnished letting of your own house stays inside this transparency; commercial operations of the kind listed at articles 34 and 35, including dealing or large-scale furnished letting with services, push the company towards corporation tax, with different rates, different deductions and a different sale regime. An SCI can also elect for corporation tax voluntarily, which some families prefer when they want to retain profits or deduct more, but the election reshapes the later capital-gains bill and should never be signed on a bank’s suggestion alone.

For a British family split across the Channel, the rent follows residence and the treaty. If you live in France, you declare worldwide income including your SCI share on the French return, with the foreign tax credit where the France–United Kingdom double tax convention of 19 June 2008 allows the other state to tax. If you live in Manchester and the SCI lets a house in the Dordogne, France taxes the French-source rental income first, and Britain gives relief under its own rules; keep the French assessment, the SCI accounts and proof of the exchange rate used. The convention’s property article reserves to the state where the building stands the right to tax income from it, and its capital article does the same for gains on it, with a credit article eliminating the double charge up to the domestic tax on the same income. The United Kingdom side is published by HM Revenue and Customs alongside the treaty text on gov.uk, which British readers should check in English before filing either return. The French return uses form 2044 for the rental share and form 2072 for the company’s own statement; the companion guide on the late 2072 return explains how to repair a missed filing without compounding the penalty.

On sale, two regimes must never be confused. When the SCI sells its house, a transparent SCI follows the private capital-gains regime for individuals: “Sous réserve des dispositions propres aux bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, aux bénéfices agricoles et aux bénéfices non commerciaux, les plus-values réalisées par les personnes physiques ou les sociétés ou groupements qui relèvent des articles 8 à 8 ter , lors de la cession à titre onéreux de biens immobiliers bâtis ou non bâtis ou de droits relatifs à ces biens, sont passibles de l’impôt sur le revenu dans les conditions prévues aux articles 150 V à 150 VH” (Article 150 U, Code général des impôts). Allowances for duration reduce the taxable gain year by year, with full exemption after long holding, and the notaire collects the tax at the signing. When instead a British associate sells their shares, the buyer steps into the company and the gain is computed on the shares, which economically reflects the bricks but legally follows its own valuation, debts deducted, with the expert mechanism above as the backstop in disputes. If the sellers are not French resident, the non-resident levy applies: “Sous réserve des conventions internationales, les plus-values, telles que définies aux e bis et e ter du I de l’article 164 B , réalisées par les personnes et organismes mentionnés au 2 du I lors de la cession des biens ou droits mentionnés au 3 sont soumises à un prélèvement selon les taux fixés au III bis” (Article 244 bis A, Code général des impôts). Non-resident British sellers must appoint a représentant fiscal, an accredited tax representative, for French property disposals above the threshold, file the specific return, and then claim the treaty credit at home so the same gain is not taxed twice in full.

Wealth tax and the annual 3 per cent tax complete the picture. Since 2018 France taxes only real-estate wealth through the impôt sur la fortune immobilière, the tax on real-estate wealth known as IFI. The base expressly catches company shares: “L’assiette de l’impôt sur la fortune immobilière est constituée par la valeur nette au 1er janvier de l’année : 1° De l’ensemble des biens et droits immobiliers appartenant aux personnes mentionnées à l’article 964 ainsi qu’à leurs enfants mineurs, lorsqu’elles ont l’administration légale des biens de ceux-ci ; 2° Des parts ou actions des sociétés et organismes établis en France ou hors de France appartenant aux personnes mentionnées au 1° du présent article, à hauteur de la fraction de leur valeur représentative de biens ou droits immobiliers détenus directement ou indirectement par la société ou l’organisme” (Article 965, Code général des impôts). A British resident holding SCI shares representing a Dordogne house above the threshold declares the fraction matching the bricks, net of deductible loans, and the detailed mechanics are worked through in the firm’s IFI guide. Separately, entities holding French property can face the yearly 3 per cent tax on market value: “Les entités juridiques : personnes morales, organismes, fiducies ou institutions comparables qui, directement ou par entité interposée, possèdent un ou plusieurs immeubles situés en France ou sont titulaires de droits réels portant sur ces biens sont redevables d’une taxe annuelle égale à 3 % de la valeur vénale de ces immeubles ou droits” (Article 990 D, Code général des impôts). A family SCI whose associates are identified individuals resident in France or in a cooperating state, who file the required disclosures, is normally exempt in practice, which is precisely why the yearly disclosure and the shareholder register must be kept immaculate. An opaque chain through a non-cooperative trust with no declaration is where the 3 per cent bites.

When a bill looks wrong, challenge it on paper and on time. The standard route is the réclamation, the formal claim to the tax office, filed from the online account with the assessment number, the exact legal basis for each head of claim, the corrected computation and every voucher: SCI accounts, 2072, 2044, exchange rates, treaty articles, representative’s certificate. Ask expressly for discharge or restitution plus late-payment interest. If the office rejects or stays silent for six months, the dispute moves to the tribunal administratif, the administrative court for tax cases, or the tribunal judiciaire, the civil court, for the 3 per cent tax and valuation disputes, where the file you built decides the case. Three errors recur for British SCI families: the office taxes the company and the associates on the same rent, forgetting transparency; it refuses duration allowances on a transparent sale by treating it as a corporate disposal; or it charges the 3 per cent tax despite complete disclosure. Each has a one-sentence answer quoting the article above and attaching the proof. Vague complaints about being taxed in both countries never succeed; a line-by-line computation tying each euro to its treaty article does.

B. How do British children inherit SCI shares and challenge an unfair bill?

Succession is the reason most British families chose the SCI in the first place, and Brexit did not remove its uses, though it changed the residence and tax backdrop. Under the European Succession Regulation No 650/2012, which still binds France, the default law for your estate is that of your habitual residence, unless you choose your national law in your will through professio juris, the Latin tag for choosing the applicable law. A British parent habitually resident in France who inserts in their will a choice-of-law clause designating English law normally secures English law for the estate as a whole, subject to French public policy and to the tax rules, which follow their own logic. The firm’s guide on choosing English law works through the wording, the limits concerning the réserve héréditaire, the forced share protecting children, and how to challenge an overreaching notaire reading. What the SCI adds is flexibility within that frame: instead of co-owning bricks in indivision after your death, your children inherit parts sociales, company shares, which can be split unequally, given gradually during your lifetime by donation de parts, a gift of shares, burdened with an usufruit, a life interest for the surviving parent, or bought out by one child without selling the house.

Lifetime gifts of shares are the quiet workhorse of British SCI planning. Parents in their sixties give each child a slice of shares every few years, using the French gift allowances that renew periodically, while the surviving spouse keeps the usufruit, meaning the right to live in the house and take any rent, and the children receive only the nue-propriété, the bare ownership. Control stays with the parents through the management clause and the agrément clause; value moves gradually to the next generation; on the second death the tax base is smaller than the whole house. Every gift passes through a notaire, is registered within the deadline, and should be coordinated with any English will and any lifetime transfers in Britain, because the two systems count and value gifts differently. Families who improvise with an English deed of gift never shown to the French authorities discover the omission at the worst moment, when the notaire settling the estate asks for the registered gift deeds (actes de donation) and the filed gift returns.

At death, the notaire settles the French estate: death certificate with apostille and sworn translation, English grant of probate where relevant, marriage and birth certificates, the SCI shareholder register, the latest accounts and 2072, bank statements, the will with its choice-of-law clause, and the succession declaration (form 2705) filed within twelve months where the deceased was non-resident, six where resident. The firm’s guide on the 2705 deadlines and penalties explains how to avoid interest running while foreign documents travel. French inheritance tax then applies to the French-situs wealth, with the shares valued at their real economic worth on the day of death, debts of the company properly allocated, and the treaty network checked for any credit. Where siblings dispute that value, perhaps because the manager had the shares valued cheaply for the buyout of one child, the expert mechanism of article 1843-4 returns to centre stage with the 2025 ruling quoted above: the expert applies the valuation rules in the statuts or the family agreement, may present alternative figures matching each side’s reading, and the judge then determines the parties’ common intention and applies the matching figure, which binds everyone.

Two cross-border frictions deserve special attention. First, the surviving spouse’s position: English expectations formed under joint tenancy do not travel, and French protection runs through the usufruit of the spouse, gifts between spouses, and the will, not through automatic survivorship. A British widow who assumed the Dordogne house passes to her outright because the couple bought “jointly” needs the SCI register and the marriage regime checked urgently; the guide on the surviving spouse’s housing rights covers the one-year free occupation and the lifelong right that may apply to directly held homes, while inside an SCI the equivalent protection must be built through shares and usufruit. Second, the France–United Kingdom estate treaty and each country’s domestic rules can point to the same wealth. The discipline is the same as for income tax: declare everywhere a return is due, pay where the situs state taxes first, claim the credit where the residence state allows it, and never hide a British account holding the sale proceeds from the French declaration, because the exchange of information will surface it.

Challenge unfair outcomes early and in the right forum. Against a shareholder-resolution refusal, a manager’s self-dealing sale or an exclusion voted without basis, act in the company: contest the resolution before the tribunal judiciaire, seek a mandataire or an administrateur provisoire where the dysfunction is grave and documented, or claim withdrawal for serious grounds with expert valuation. Against an inheritance-tax reassessment that overvalues the shares, ignores company debts, denies an allowance or misreads the treaty, file the réclamation with a counter-valuation, the accounts, the loan deeds and the treaty computation, then appeal to the administrative court if needed. Against a foreign grant or an English trust document the notaire will not recognise, have it translated, apostilled and explained through a private-international-law opinion rather than arguing at the counter. In every forum the winning file has the same shape: the exact text, the exact figure, the exact proof, in French, on time.

Conclusion

A British family should buy its French house through an SCI after Brexit when several people share one home across generations and need a company to organise what love alone cannot: who decides, who pays, who leaves and at what price, and who inherits what. The SCI is a civil company whose associates answer indefinitely for its debts in proportion to their shares, whose manager must be replaced through proper meetings or a court-appointed agent, whose provisional administration demands proof of grave dysfunction, whose departing members leave through withdrawal for serious grounds with expert valuation under rules the judge interprets and the expert applies. For tax, the transparent SCI declares rent in each associate’s hands, follows the private gains regime on the bricks and the share regime on the paper, discloses its way out of the yearly 3 per cent tax, declares the real-estate fraction to wealth tax, and leans on the 2008 convention so the same pound is not fully taxed twice. For succession, it turns bricks into shares that can be given gradually, burdened with a life interest and bought out without selling the roof, under the law you chose in your will. Build the statuts carefully, keep the accounts and the register immaculate, file every return in both countries, and challenge every wrong bill with the text, the figure and the proof. The farmhouse then remains what you bought it for: a family home, not a family dispute.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer from the firm. We can review your SCI articles, your buyout or inheritance valuation and any French tax bill with you. Call Maître Reda Kohen at +33 6 46 60 58 22. Contact the firm.