Your mother kept a current account in France for twenty years, first to pay the bills on the Dordogne holiday home, later to receive the French pension top-up and settle the local taxes. She lived in Kent, held a British passport, made her will with an English solicitor, and never thought of herself as anything but British. When she dies, you telephone the French branch from Tunbridge Wells to ask for the balance to be transferred to the estate, and the answer stops you cold: the account is frozen, the English grant of probate means nothing to them, and nothing will move until a French notaire (a public officer who settles estates) tells them who the heirs are. Weeks pass, the direct debits for the French house fail, and a second letter arrives from the French tax office about death duties. This is the normal experience of British families after a death touching France, and it has a strict legal logic once it is explained.

French banks do not release a dead customer’s money on the strength of foreign papers alone. They need French proof of heirship, they need to know which national law governs the succession, and in most cases they want evidence that the French death-tax declaration has been filed before they hand over a large balance. Since Brexit changed none of this private-law machinery, the European succession rules still decide which law applies, the Franco-British tax treaty of 1963 still allocates the taxing rights, and French domestic law still freezes individual accounts on death while leaving joint accounts running under the survivor. This guide walks you through the whole chain in the order you will meet it: why the money is blocked and what the bank must do, how to prove you are the heir from Britain, which law and which tax apply to the French account, and how to force release or challenge a refusal when the file stalls.

I. My relative died and the French bank froze the money: how do I prove I am the heir?

A. Why the bank blocks an individual account but leaves a joint account open

The first shock is the freeze itself, and it is entirely lawful. As soon as the bank learns of the death, it blocks every account of which the deceased was the sole holder. The official public-service guidance puts it in plain terms: the bank is blocking the various accounts opened (current account, booklet account or savings account) of which the deceased was sole holder. Current accounts, savings passbooks (livrets) and term deposits are all caught. Standing orders and direct debits stop, the debit card dies with the holder, and nobody, not even the surviving spouse, can withdraw a euro from that account until the succession file designates the heirs. This is why funeral bills and urgent French property charges should be paid from another source in the first weeks: the frozen account cannot help, however large its balance.

The freeze is not free. The bank may charge the estate for the work the death creates: identifying the accounts, checking the identity and powers of the claimants, and eventually transferring the money. Those succession fees are now capped by regulation, and the guidance states the limit exactly: The amount of the fee is capped at 1% the total balance of the accounts and savings products of the deceased. This amount cannot exceed 857 euros. If the statement shows several thousand euros of frais de succession, ask for the detailed breakdown and compare it with the cap: anything above 857 euros must come off, and the 1 per cent base itself must be computed on the balances held by that bank, not on the whole worldwide estate.

A joint account (compte joint) follows the opposite rule, and confusing the two is the most expensive mistake families make. The death of one co-holder does not freeze a joint account: it keeps running under the signature of the survivor, unless the heirs of the deceased formally object. The public-service page states the principle word for word: The account remains open except opposition by the heirs of the deceased joint proprietor, and it adds that the account then continues for the surviving holders, becoming an individual account automatically where only one survivor remains. The deceased’s share is not decided by the bank on the day of death; as the same page explains, the share belonging to the deceased shall be determined at the time of settlement of the estate. In practice the survivor keeps paying the household bills from the joint account while the notaire later works out what portion belonged to the deceased and must be shared with the other heirs.

That interim freedom is exactly why an heir who is not the surviving co-holder must act fast. A Paris appeal decision from September 2025 shows the trap in real life: after the death, the bank left a joint account, holding more than 160,000 euros largely funded by the sale of the father’s own property, at the free disposal of the surviving co-holder, and the son, who claimed to be the sole heir, found the succession apparently closed in the bank’s books before the notaire had even obtained the account statements (Paris, Pôle 5, chamber 6, 17 September 2025, no. 23/11574, decision 68cb96d06b783f114c41d9af). The court ultimately ordered the bank to hand over the statements from 1 January 2021 to the date of death, but the money itself had long been spendable by the survivor. The lesson for British families is blunt: if your late father held a joint account with a second wife, a partner or anyone else, instruct the French notaire immediately to notify the bank of your heirship and register an opposition (a formal objection) on the account. A simple request for information is not an opposition, and without one the bank is entitled to let the survivor operate the account and, after its contractual delay, convert it into an account in the survivor’s sole name.

Two neighbouring assets deserve a line each, because families constantly mix them with the bank balance. A life-assurance policy (assurance-vie) is not part of the blocked accounts: it passes outside the succession to the named beneficiary on production of the death certificate, under its own tax regime, and the bank’s succession department handles it through a separate channel. A safe-deposit box (coffre-fort) linked to an individual account is sealed and opened only by inventory with the heirs; linked to a joint account, it is not automatically blocked, but the guidance recommends asking for it to be sealed and inventoried in the presence of the heirs and the co-renter to protect everyone. And securities accounts (comptes-titres) are frozen in principle: the bank may no longer buy or sell without the agreement of all the heirs, so a portfolio of French shares sits motionless until the heirship is settled.

B. How to prove you are the heir from Britain: signed attestation, notarial deed and European certificate

French law gives the heirs immediate ownership of the estate from the day of death. Article 724 of the Civil Code provides: Les héritiers désignés par la loi sont saisis de plein droit des biens, droits et actions du défunt. In plain English, the designated heirs step automatically into the shoes of the deceased. But automatic ownership is not automatic proof, and the bank, which pays the wrong person at its own risk, will not move until the proof matches French requirements. Three levels of proof exist, and which one you need depends on the size and content of the estate.

For very small estates with no property, a private signed statement can be enough. Where the whole succession is worth less than 5,965 euros, the heirs may prove their status with an attestation signed by all of them, without going through a notaire. The public-service page, verified in January 2026, states the threshold exactly: In case of succession less than 5,965 euros, you can prove that you are heir by a certificate signed by all the heirs. That paper lets the family withdraw amounts from the deceased’s bank accounts, up to a maximum of 5,965 euros, to settle the protective acts, on production of invoices or funeral orders, and if the total amount of money held by the banking institution is less than 5,965 euros obtain the closure of the accounts of the deceased and the payment of the sums shown therein. Every heir must sign, the statement must declare that there is no will, no marriage contract, no dispute and no property in the estate, and it must be accompanied by civil-status documents and a certificate that no will was registered in the French wills file (fichier central des dispositions de dernières volontés). For a British family this route is narrow: the moment the deceased owned a French flat, a house, or bank balances above the threshold, it is closed, and a notarial deed becomes compulsory.

The standard proof is the acte de notoriété, a deed drawn up by the notaire identifying the heirs and each one’s share. The notaire collects the death certificate, the family record book (livret de famille) or British birth and marriage certificates with sworn translations, the English will if there is one, and the result of the search in the French wills file, then signs the deed that the bank will accept. British clients should budget for the practical frictions: the notaire will ask for full birth certificates rather than short ones, for grants of probate where they exist, and for evidence of any divorce, because French heirship turns on precise family status. A divorced former spouse, for example, is not an heir at all. The Civil Code states the rule in one line: Est conjoint successible le conjoint survivant non divorcé. Only the spouse who was still married, and not divorced, at the death can inherit as surviving spouse. Where the deceased remarried, divorced in England and never updated the French paperwork, the notaire will want the English decree absolute and its translation before excluding or including anyone.

The third instrument is specifically designed for cross-border families: the European Certificate of Succession (certificat successoral européen), created by the EU Succession Regulation 650/2012 and issued in France by the notaire. It proves heirship, the shares, and the powers of the administrator in every Member State without further formalities, and a British heir dealing with a French bank from London can present it instead of obtaining a separate English grant for the French assets. But its limits matter enormously, and the Cour de cassation spelled them out in a case that is now the reference for every bank dispute. A widower holding an uncontested European certificate demanded that BNP Paribas release his late wife’s funds; the bank refused until the foreign will had been registered with the French tax office; and the First Civil Chamber upheld the bank. Its holding deserves quotation in full: le certificat successoral européen avait une efficacité probatoire mais ne constituait pas un titre exécutoire. The certificate proves who the heirs are, but it is not an enforcement order, and it does not sweep away the remaining French formalities. The court added that les dispositions des articles 1000 du code civil et 655 du code général des impôts prévoyant l’enregistrement des testaments faits en pays étrangers, constituaient une formalité fiscale dès lors que celle-ci relevait de l’administration fiscale et donnait lieu au paiement d’un droit fixe de 125 euros (Cass. 1st Civil Chamber, 13 April 2022, no. 20-23.530). In practice, then, an English will covering French assets must still be registered with the tax office, for a fixed duty of 125 euros, before the bank will treat the file as complete. The underlying statutes say so directly. Article 1000 of the Civil Code provides: 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, and Article 655 of the General Tax Code mirrors it on the fiscal side: 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.

Why banks insist on this pile of paper becomes clear once you see their own risk. A bank that pays the person who merely looks like the heir is protected if it acted honestly. Article 1342-3 of the Civil Code provides: Le paiement fait de bonne foi à un créancier apparent est valable. Payment made in good faith to an apparent creditor is valid, which means a bank that hands the balance to an apparent heir, on plausible documents, is discharged against the true heir who appears later. Symmetrically, a bank that pays without any serious verification faces a damages claim from the disinherited family. Caught between those two liabilities, every succession department chooses caution: full notarial deed, registered will, tax filing evidence, and no release until the file is watertight. Understanding that incentive changes how you negotiate. Threatening the counter clerk achieves nothing; supplying, through the notaire, each document the bank’s checklist requires, in the order it requires them, is what unlocks the funds.

II. How do I get the money out, pay the French death tax and challenge a refusal?

A. Which law and which tax apply when the deceased lived in Britain: European succession rules, French death duties and the 1963 treaty

Before the bank releases a large balance, two questions must be answered: whose inheritance law decides who gets the money, and which country taxes it. For British families both answers routinely surprise, because the deceased lived in Britain yet French rules still govern the French account.

On the civil side, the EU Succession Regulation 650/2012, which the United Kingdom never joined but which France applies with universal scope, points in principle to the law of the country where the deceased was habitually resident at death, for the whole estate including bank accounts. Habitual residence is a question of fact, not of passport or domicile in the English sense, and the Cour de cassation demands a full assessment of real life. In the leading decision on Article 4 of the Regulation, it recalled that the competent courts are those of the Member State of habitual residence, because sont compétentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble d’une succession les juridictions de l’État membre dans lequel le défunt avait sa résidence habituelle au moment de son décès, and that fixing that residence requires that l’autorité chargée de la succession doit procéder à une évaluation d’ensemble des circonstances de la vie du défunt au cours des années précédant son décès et au moment de son décès, prenant en compte tous les éléments de fait pertinents, notamment la durée et la régularité de la présence du défunt dans l’État concerné ainsi que les conditions et les raisons de cette présence, la résidence habituelle ainsi déterminée devant révéler un lien étroit et stable avec l’État concerné (Cass. 1st Civil Chamber, 29 May 2019, no. 18-13.383). Duration and regularity of presence, the reasons for it, family and social ties, the location of the main home and assets: everything counts, and nationality or the situs of property only serve as tie-breakers where the person genuinely split life between two countries. A retired Briton who spent eight months a year in the Dordogne house, joined local associations, and received care there may well be habitually resident in France though she kept her British passport and a London correspondence address; conversely, a Kent resident who merely summered in France for six weeks a year remains habitually resident in England even if she owned the French house for decades.

Two refinements matter for British files. First, the deceased can choose in the will the law of their nationality to govern the whole succession, a choice English solicitors now routinely insert as professio juris for clients with French assets. That choice can displace French intestacy or forced-heirship mechanics for the bank balance, which is why the notaire reads the English will first: whoever the chosen law designates as heir is the person the bank must ultimately pay. Second, where the deceased lived outside any Member State, as a purely England-based Briton does, French courts may still take the succession under the Regulation’s subsidiary jurisdiction where the deceased was French-adjacent through nationality or property in France. The Cour de cassation even referred the point to the Court of Justice of the European Union on whether a Member State court that finds the deceased had its nationality and owned property there must raise that subsidiary jurisdiction of its own motion (Cass. 1st Civil Chamber, 18 November 2020, no. 19-15.438, decision 5fca277ce35a255d41ca7393). The practical message is simple: do not assume the French notaire and the French bank have no role just because the deceased never lived in France. The French account and any French property pull the file into France.

On the tax side, France taxes the French account even where the deceased died domiciled in England. Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code sets the territorial scope, and its second paragraph covers exactly the British holiday-home pattern: Les biens meubles et immeubles, que ces derniers soient possédés directement ou indirectement, situés en France, et notamment les fonds publics français, parts d’intérêts, biens ou droits composant un trust défini à l’article 792-0 bis et produits qui y sont capitalisés, créances et valeurs mobilières françaises, lorsque le donateur ou le défunt n’a pas son domicile fiscal en France are subject to French death duties. A current account with a French bank is a French-situated claim, so it falls in the French net even if the holder lived in Manchester and every other asset sits in England. Where the deceased was fiscally domiciled in France, the net is wider still and catches worldwide assets; and where the British heir receiving the money is fiscally domiciled in France, a third paragraph can tax foreign assets received, subject to prior years of French residence. The notaire maps these three paragraphs onto the family before a single figure is computed.

Double taxation is then relieved, not eliminated at source, by the Franco-British succession convention of 1963, whose British-side administration the French tax office summarises in its official commentary (BOFiP INT-CVB-GBR on the France-United Kingdom inheritance convention): French real estate and the French bank balance remain taxable in France, with the United Kingdom granting relief against British inheritance tax on the same assets. Concretely, the family pays the French duties first on the French assets and then claims a credit in the British probate computation, not the reverse. The treaty does not exempt the French account, and any adviser who suggests waiting for HMRC clearance before filing in France is inviting late-payment interest on the French side.

The filing duties themselves are strict. Every heir must subscribe a detailed declaration. Article 800 of the General Tax Code provides: Les héritiers, légataires ou donataires, leurs tuteurs ou curateurs, sont tenus de souscrire une déclaration détaillée. Small estates are excused below 50,000 euros of gross assets for direct-line heirs and surviving spouses who received no prior gifts, and below 3,000 euros for other heirs, but a French bank balance plus a house almost always exceeds those floors. The deadline runs from the death: 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. A death in England therefore gives twelve months, and the tax office confirms the split in its own words: Si décès en France : dans les 6 mois du décès. Si décès à l’étranger : dans les 12 mois du décès. Non-resident heirs do not file at the local office of the French house: the declaration and the payment go to the dedicated non-residents’ revenue office, since Lieu : Recette des Non résidents (la déclaration doit être accompagnée du paiement). That office sits at 10 rue du Centre, Noisy-le-Grand, and in practice the French notaire prepares and posts the file there while the British family funds the duty from England.

The arithmetic, once the declaration is in, follows the standard French scale after family allowances. Each child, for instance, benefits from a personal allowance confirmed by Article 779 of the General Tax Code: il est effectué un abattement de 100 000 euros 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. Take a widowed mother dying in Bristol leaving two adult children, a French account of 90,000 euros and no French property: the account is French-taxable under Article 750 ter, each child deducts 100,000 euros from their share, and with 45,000 euros each falling below the allowance, no French duty is due, though the declaration itself remains compulsory if the thresholds require it. Add the Dordogne house worth 320,000 euros and the picture changes: each child’s taxable share rises to 205,000 euros, the 100,000 euro allowance leaves 105,000 euros taxable per child at the progressive sibling-unrelated scale the notaire computes, and the bank will want proof that this declaration was filed, and the duty paid or secured, before releasing the 90,000 euros. Families should therefore never promise the British beneficiaries the gross balance: the French tax comes out of the French assets first, and only the net is distributable.

B. Deadlines, paper trail and how to challenge a bank or tax refusal

Release of the money is a paperwork sequence, and order matters more than speed. Treat the first month as the evidence-gathering phase. Obtain several original copies of the French or British death certificate, because every office keeps one. Ask the notaire to search the French wills file immediately: the certificate of registration or non-registration conditions everything else, and banks reject files without it. Open the succession with a French notaire in the area of the account or the property, sending the English will, the grant of probate or letters of administration if one has issued (the British-side procedure is explained on GOV.UK dealing with the estate of someone who has died), full birth and marriage certificates for each heir, any English divorce decrees, and the last three French tax notices and bank statements you can find. At the same time, write to the bank’s succession department by recorded delivery: announce the death, give the account numbers, name the notaire, and, where a joint account exists with a survivor who is not the sole heir, have the notaire register the opposition in the same letter. Keep the recorded-delivery slips: the Paris joint-account litigation turned partly on what the bank received and when, and heirs who can prove dates win arguments that heirs who telephoned lose.

The second phase belongs to the notaire. They draw up the acte de notoriété, have any English will translated by a sworn translator and registered with the tax office for the 125 euro fixed duty confirmed by the Cour de cassation, and apply for the European Certificate of Succession where a cross-border instrument will help with insurers or a second bank. They then prepare the detailed death-tax declaration with valuations at the date of death, compute the allowances and the progressive duty, and file it with the non-residents’ revenue office within the twelve-month deadline where the death occurred abroad, with payment or a reasoned deferral request. Only when that file is lodged does the bank’s checklist normally clear: deed of heirship, registered will, certificate of non-registration or registered testament, tax filing receipt (récépissé) or certificate of payment, and identity documents for each payee. Expect the transfer by bank transfer to the succession account and then to the heirs, not in cash and not to a single heir’s personal English account without the others’ written authority.

When the bank still says no, escalate in writing and in stages. First, send the succession department a formal demand (mise en demeure) listing each missing document as supplied, with copies, and give a two-week deadline for release with interest. Second, if the branch sits in France, refer the file to the bank’s internal mediator (médiateur bancaire), whose details appear on the account agreement: mediation is free, suspends nothing, but produces a reasoned opinion that succession departments take seriously. Third, have the notaire or your lawyer issue proceedings for payment and disclosure before the judicial court (tribunal judiciaire) of the bank’s seat, joining the periodic penalty (astreinte) request where the balance is large. The Paris decision discussed above is the template for what judges order even when they dismiss the damages claim: production of the full statements from January of the year before death to the death, so that diverted funds can be traced into the settlement. Heirs should therefore always claim the statements as well as the money: without the movements, the final shares cannot be computed, and a survivor who emptied the account in the last months of life cannot be challenged.

Tax refusals and reassessments follow a different track, before the administrative authorities. If the non-residents’ office disputes the valuation, denies a treaty credit, or applies penalties for late filing, the first step is a written claim to that same office setting out the facts, the treaty and statutory provisions relied on, and the exact discharge requested, with the notaire’s computation attached. File it as soon as the notice arrives and keep proof of sending: French tax procedure rewards early, documented complaints and punishes silence. If the office maintains the assessment, the dispute moves to the administrative court (tribunal administratif), where the prior claim opens the door to the judge. Two practical warnings belong here. Valuations must be evidenced at the filing stage with estate-agent appraisals or notarial references for the house and dated statements for the accounts: reconstructed figures produced two years later carry little weight. And penalties for missing the twelve-month deadline accrue monthly, so where the English probate delays the French file, the notaire should file a protective provisional declaration on time and correct it later rather than file late and complete.

A final cross-border warning concerns lifetime planning that arrives too late. Some families discover, after the death, that moving the French balance to England in the last illness would have simplified everything. Besides the obvious risk of being characterised as a gift, late transfers out of a French account by an attorney under an English lasting power of attorney are routinely questioned by banks and by the tax office, and they do not remove the French taxing right over French-situated assets at death. Conversely, a well-drafted English will electing English law, a French marriage or property regime put in order during life, and a list of accounts left with the will transform the post-death sequence from a forensic reconstruction into an orderly file. The cheapest succession is the one prepared while the holder can still sign.

Conclusion

A blocked French bank account after a British death is not an administrative error but the visible part of a three-stage system: the bank freezes sole accounts and protects itself behind French proof of heirship, the European succession rules and the French tax code together decide who inherits and what duty is due, and the money moves only when the notarial deed, the registered will and the tax filing align. Families who understand that sequence stop fighting the freeze and start feeding the file: death certificates and will-file search in month one, notaire and opposition on any joint account immediately, detailed declaration and duty within twelve months of a death in England, and written, staged challenges where a bank or the tax office refuses. Handled in that order, with each document kept and each deadline calendared, the French balance reaches the British heirs net of the French tax that was always due on it, and the file closes without litigation. Handled backwards, with pressure on the counter and silence towards the notaire, the same balance funds months of correspondence instead.

Need a quick opinion on your case.

Our office offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm, to review your bank’s letters, your heirship position and your declaration deadline before funds move or time runs out. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write through our contact page with the death certificate, the latest French bank statement and any English will or grant, and we will tell you which proof unlocks the account and what tax to expect.