You own a house in France, your children live in Britain, and you want them to have the house now rather than after a long probate. In England you would sign a transfer deed, perhaps keep nothing back, and think mainly about seven-year inheritance tax rules. In France none of those reflexes work. The notaire (the French public legal officer who alone authenticates gifts and settles successions involving French land) will ask about your réserve héréditaire (the forced share of your estate that French law guarantees to your children), about the quotité disponible (the free share you may dispose of as you wish), and about whether you want to keep a usufruit (a lifelong right to live in and use the property) while your children receive only the nue-propriété (the bare ownership without current use). Every French term is explained the first time it appears.

The short answer is that the standard tool for a British parent is the donation-partage (a lifetime gift that also shares the estate between the presumed heirs), made before a notaire, often with the parent keeping the usufruit so the gift costs less tax today and the family avoids a quarrel tomorrow. Each child benefits from a 100,000 euro tax-free allowance, gifts of the previous fifteen years are added back, and progressive rates run from 5 to 45 per cent. An English will that tries to leave a French house to one child only, or an English-style trust over French land, can be refused by the notaire or reduced by a court at the request of a disinherited child. Where a refusal or a wrong tax bill arrives, French law provides real remedies: a court action to restore a child’s forced share, and a formal claim against the tax assessment. This article explains each step, with the exact legal texts and court decisions, so you can instruct the notaire with confidence and know when to fight.

I. Why your English reflexes fail on a French house, and what the donation-partage does instead

British owners typically arrive at the notaire’s office with one of three plans: transfer the house to the children by private deed while continuing to live there, put the house into an English trust for the children, or leave it to the eldest child by an English will while compensating the others informally. Each of these plans collides with a French rule that has no English equivalent. Understanding the collision is the first step, because the donation-partage was designed precisely to achieve what you want — give now, keep control, treat each child fairly — inside French law rather than against it.

A. Can I simply give my French house to my children the English way?

No. In England you enjoy almost complete freedom to leave your estate to whom you please, and lifetime gifts of land need only a signed deed and registration. In France your children are héritiers réservataires (forced heirs): the statute books state that “La réserve héréditaire est la part des biens et droits successoraux dont la loi assure la dévolution libre de charges à certains héritiers dits réservataires, s’ils sont appelés à la succession et s’ils l’acceptent” (Article 912 of the Civil Code). The free share is defined in the same breath: “La quotité disponible est la part des biens et droits successoraux qui n’est pas réservée par la loi et dont le défunt a pu disposer librement par des libéralités” (Article 912 of the Civil Code). A gift that eats into the forced share is not void from the start, but it can be cut back — réduite — when the succession opens, at the request of the child who lost out.

The arithmetic is fixed by Article 913 of the Civil Code: “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.” With one child, half the estate is reserved and half is free; with two children, two thirds are reserved; with three or more, three quarters. So a British father of three who gives the whole Dordogne house, worth nearly the entire estate, to his eldest daughter has given her more than the free quarter: the two younger children can demand réduction (reduction of the excessive gift) when he dies. Choosing English law in your will under the European Succession Regulation does not reliably escape this, because the Code now provides that where the foreign law applicable to the succession offers children no forced-share protection, each child may levy compensatory recovery on assets situated in France — the paragraph beginning “Lorsque le défunt ou au moins l’un de ses enfants est, au moment du décès, ressortissant d’un Etat membre de l’Union européenne ou y réside habituellement” (Article 913 of the Civil Code). An English trust over the French house fares no better: France does not give effect to a trust as a way of holding French land outside the forced-share rules, and the notaire settling the succession will treat the house as part of the estate regardless of the trust deed.

The compliant instrument is the donation-partage. Article 1075 of the Civil Code provides: “Toute personne peut faire, entre ses héritiers présomptifs, la distribution et le partage de ses biens et de ses droits. Cet acte peut se faire sous forme de donation-partage ou de testament-partage.” In plain terms, you share out your estate among your presumed heirs while you are alive, and the beneficiaries become immediately and definitively owners of the property given — they become immediately and definitively owners of the gifted property (service-public.fr, Faire une donation-partage, checked 3 January 2025). For a house, the deed must be drawn by a notaire in authentic form and published at the land registry (publicité foncière, the registration that makes the transfer enforceable against third parties); a private English-style deed cannot transfer French land.

Two practical features make the donation-partage attractive to British families. First, it can cover only property you already own — “La donation-partage ne peut avoir pour objet que des biens présents” — but the gift and the sharing may be done in two separate deeds provided you participate in both (Article 1076 of the Civil Code). The Court of Cassation has confirmed this flexibility in a published ruling: “la donation-partage, qui peut être faite en deux temps ainsi que le prévoit l’article 1076 du code civil, ne constitue pas un partage ordinaire que les attributaires pourraient contester mais un partage fait par l’ascendant de son vivant et selon sa seule volonté” (Cass. 1st civ., 13 Feb. 2019, No. 18-11.642, official full text of the ruling). Second, the sharing binds the family once one child accepts: “le partage d’ascendant se forme dès que l’un des enfants a accepté son lot” — the ascendant’s sharing is formed as soon as one of the children has accepted their share (same decision). A child who refuses to sign cannot on that ground alone undo what the parent has lawfully shared, although, as section II.B explains, a child who received less than their forced share keeps the right to sue for completion.

For parents resident in France, the donation-partage has a further tax advantage over an ordinary gift: because each lot is fixed definitively at today’s value, later growth in the house’s value does not retrospectively inflate the forced-share calculation against the donee in the way an ordinary advance gift (donation simple, a gift without sharing) can. That certainty is worth real money in rising markets in Paris, the Alps and the coastal departments, and it is the main reason French advisers recommend the donation-partage over a simple deed of gift for the family home.

B. How do I keep living in the house after giving it away?

Most British parents want to give the house but go on living in it, if not all year round then for long summer stays. French law offers a clean mechanism: split ownership between usufruit and nue-propriété. “L’usufruit est le droit de jouir des choses dont un autre a la propriété, comme le propriétaire lui-même, mais à la charge d’en conserver la substance” (Article 578 of the Civil Code). You keep the usufruit — the right to live in the house, let it and take the rent — and your children receive the nue-propriété, which automatically blossoms into full ownership when the usufruit ends. The Code lists the ways an usufruit ends, beginning with the natural one: “L’usufruit s’éteint : Par la mort de l’usufruitier ; Par l’expiration du temps pour lequel il a été accordé ; Par la consolidation ou la réunion sur la même tête, des deux qualités d’usufruitier et de propriétaire ; Par le non-usage du droit pendant trente ans ; Par la perte totale de la chose sur laquelle l’usufruit est établi.” (Article 617 of the Civil Code). On the parent’s death, no new deed is needed: the children’s nue-propriété simply becomes full ownership, with no second round of gift tax.

This split, called démembrement de propriété (division of ownership between usufruit and nue-propriété), directly reduces the tax paid today, because gift tax is charged only on the value of what the children actually receive. Article 669 of the General Tax Code sets the scale: “Pour la liquidation des droits d’enregistrement et de la taxe de publicité foncière, la valeur de la nue-propriété et de l’usufruit est déterminée par une quotité de la valeur de la propriété entière, conformément au barème ci-après”, with the usufruit worth 90 per cent where the holder is under 21 and falling stepwise — 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 and finally 10 per cent — as the holder’s age rises. A 75-year-old parent keeping the usufruit therefore gives away only 70 per cent of the house’s value for tax purposes, and each child’s 100,000 euro allowance (section II.A) applies to that reduced figure. The older you are when you give, the cheaper the gift.

The usufruitier (the holder of the usufruit) is not a free rider. Day-to-day repairs and the taxe d’habitation where still due fall on the occupant, while the nus-propriétaires (the bare owners) bear major structural works; the parent must preserve the substance of the house and cannot demolish or fundamentally transform it. These duties should be spelled out in the deed, together with who pays buildings insurance, the taxe foncière (the local property tax on owners) and any charges de copropriété (flat-management charges) where the property is a flat. British families should also decide in the deed what happens if the parent later needs residential care: can the usufruit be sold or surrendered, and at what price between parent and children? Settling this in advance avoids the most common post-gift dispute, where children who paid tax on a nue-propriété find the parent wanting to sell the usufruit back to fund care fees.

A final warning for the England-based parent: keeping the usufruit while living in England does not by itself make you French tax-resident, but renting the house out, spending more than 183 days a year in it, or moving your centre of interests to France can. Residence drives which country taxes your worldwide income and which allowances apply, so take advice on residence before signing — the gift deed is the wrong moment to discover you have become French-resident for the whole tax year. The British government’s own guide for citizens in France is a useful starting checklist for the residence, healthcare and driving consequences of spending longer in France (gov.uk, Living in France).

II. What tax will my children pay, and what if the notaire or the tax office says no?

French gift tax (droits de donation, the registration duties levied on lifetime gifts) is computed like inheritance tax: each child is taxed separately on what they receive, after their personal allowance, at progressive rates. The notaire normally computes the tax, collects it and registers the deed within one month; the bill can still be wrong, and a notaire can still refuse an English arrangement that French law does not recognise. This part states the figures, then the remedies.

A. How much gift tax will my children pay on the French house?

The rates are set by Article 777 of the General Tax Code: “Les droits de mutation à titre gratuit sont fixés aux taux indiqués dans les tableaux ci-après, pour la part nette revenant à chaque ayant droit” (for the net share going to each beneficiary). For gifts and inheritances in the direct line (parent to child), Table I applies: 5 per cent up to 8,072 euros, 10 per cent from 8,072 to 12,109 euros, 15 per cent to 15,932 euros, 20 per cent to 552,324 euros, then 30, 40 and 45 per cent in the higher bands. Before those rates bite, each child deducts a personal allowance: “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” (Article 779 of the General Tax Code).

Take a concrete example. A widowed mother gives a house worth 400,000 euros in full ownership, equally, to her two sons. Each son receives 200,000 euros, deducts 100,000 euros, and is taxed on 100,000 euros: 5 per cent of 8,072 plus 10 per cent of the next 4,037 plus 15 per cent of 3,823 plus 20 per cent of the remaining 84,068 comes to roughly 18,200 euros per son. If instead she keeps the usufruit at age 75, each son receives nue-propriété worth about 70 per cent, or 140,000 euros; after the 100,000 euro allowance only 40,000 euros is taxed, costing roughly 6,200 euros each — a saving of about two thirds. Figures are rounded for illustration; the notaire’s computation on the exact deed values governs.

Two traps catch British families. First, earlier gifts are added back: “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” (Article 784 of the General Tax Code). A 60,000 euro cash gift to a son in 2018 therefore consumes 60,000 euros of his 100,000 euro allowance for a 2026 gift of the house, because fifteen years have not passed. Spacing gifts at least fifteen years apart restores the full allowance — the well-known rhythm of French family planning. Second, the deed itself costs money beyond the tax: where the donation-partage includes land or buildings you also pay land-registration duty, and you always pay the notaire’s regulated fee (émoluments), which is proportional to the full-ownership value given — from 4.837 per cent before tax on the first 6,500 euros down to 0.998 per cent above 60,000 euros (service-public.fr, Faire une donation-partage). Ask for the fee note (note de frais) before signing; disbursements and the land-registry duty come on top.

On the British side, a gift of a French house can still matter for United Kingdom inheritance tax, which turns largely on domicile rather than on where the land stands; the British rules for someone dying while living outside the United Kingdom are summarised by HM Revenue and Customs (gov.uk, How Inheritance Tax works), and the calculation of French gift tax itself is explained in English by the French administration (service-public.fr, Droits de donation). France taxes the French house first; whether the United Kingdom gives relief, and how the fifteen-year French reminder interacts with British potentially-exempt-transfer rules, depends on domicile and timing and should be modelled before the deed, not after. Keep every deed, valuation and tax receipt: the fifteen-year reminder in Article 784 of the General Tax Code requires each new deed to disclose earlier gifts, and an undisclosed 2018 gift surfacing in 2030 produces interest as well as duty.

B. The notaire refuses my English will or the tax bill looks wrong: how do I challenge it?

Refusals come in three familiar shapes. The notaire refuses to apply an English will leaving the French house to one child only, or refuses to recognise an English trust or lasting power of attorney over the house. Or the donee child considers the gift unfair and wants their forced share completed. Or the tax office (service des impôts des particuliers, the local personal-tax office) issues a reassessment (redressement, a corrected assessment demanding more tax) disputing the valuation or denying the allowance. Each has a remedy.

Where a notaire will not proceed, remember that French courts have a duty to deal with successions linked to France even where the deceased lived in Britain. In a published succession ruling the Court of Cassation held: “lorsque la résidence habituelle du défunt au moment du décès n’est pas située dans un État membre, les juridictions de l’État membre dans lequel sont situés des biens successoraux sont néanmoins compétentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble de la succession dans la mesure où le défunt possédait la nationalité de cet État membre au moment du décès” (Cass. 1st civ., 21 Sept. 2022, No. 19-15.438, official full text of the ruling). The same ruling recalls the European Court’s words that a court “doit relever d’office sa compétence au titre de la règle de compétence subsidiaire” — it must raise of its own motion its subsidiary jurisdiction when it finds it lacks general jurisdiction. In practice this means a British family blocked before a notaire can seize the French tribunal judiciaire (the ordinary civil court) for the succession dispute, and the court cannot simply decline because the deceased lived in Kent: French nationality plus French land founds subsidiary jurisdiction over the whole succession.

Where a child received too little, the statute gives them a direct action. Article 1077-1 of the Civil Code states: “L’héritier réservataire, qui n’a pas concouru à la donation-partage, ou qui a reçu un lot inférieur à sa part de réserve, peut exercer l’action en réduction, s’il n’existe pas à l’ouverture de la succession des biens non compris dans le partage et suffisants pour composer ou compléter sa réserve”. The calculation rebuilds a single mass: “La réduction se détermine en formant une masse de tous les biens existant au décès du donateur ou testateur. Les biens dont il a été disposé par donation entre vifs sont fictivement réunis à cette masse, d’après leur état à l’époque de la donation et leur valeur à l’ouverture de la succession” (Article 922 of the Civil Code). Note the valuation sting: the gifted house counts at its value when the succession opens, not when it was given. A house given in 2016 and worth half as much again by 2026 can push a once-fair sharing over the free share — the precise reason the donation-partage, whose lots are fixed definitively, protects the donee better than a simple gift. A Lyon appeal court recently applied exactly this machinery, holding that an heir left short of their forced share by a family sharing “peut parfaitement contester la donation-partage et en demander la réduction, de sorte à être alloti de sa part de réserve héréditaire” (CA Lyon, 1st civ. B, 18 Feb. 2025, No. 22/01887, official full text of the ruling). Act within the limitation periods your lawyer identifies from the opening of the succession; reduction claims are not open-ended.

Against a wrong tax bill, the path is the standard tax dispute: a written claim (réclamation) to the office that issued the notice, attaching the deed, the valuation evidence and the computation, followed if necessary by an appeal to the administrative court (tribunal administratif, the court that hears tax disputes). The strongest files challenge method, not mood: an independent valuation at the gift date, proof that the fifteen-year reminder was correctly applied, and the correct age band of Article 669 of the General Tax Code where usufruit was kept. Pay what is plainly due and contest the balance where the procedure allows, because late-payment interest accrues while you argue.

For readers in Paris and the Île-de-France, three local points matter. First, valuations move fast and tax offices look closely at them: keep the estate agent’s comparables and, above 500,000 euros, consider an expert valuation dated the month of the deed. Second, the competent courts and offices are those of the property’s location for the gift and succession, and of the donor’s residence for residence-linked questions — a Paris flat means Paris land-registry and Paris courts, even if the children live in Manchester. Third, diaries are tight: notaires in the capital routinely need six to ten weeks to prepare a donation-partage with démembrement, so start before a planned completion or a year-end deadline rather than after.

Conclusion

A British parent can give a French house to the children now, keep living in it, and pay far less tax than a family that waits for death — provided the gift is made the French way. The donation-partage before a notaire shares the estate definitively among the presumed heirs; keeping the usufruit cuts the taxable base under the age scale while guaranteeing a roof; each child’s 100,000 euro allowance and the fifteen-year reminder set the timetable; and the forced-share rules, far from being a trap, become the guarantee that no child can later be cut out. English deeds, trusts and one-child wills over French land invite refusal or reduction. Where refusal comes — a blocked deed, a short-changed child, a disputed assessment — the remedies exist and the courts must hear them. Take the valuation, the allowance calendar and the deed structure seriously at the start, and the house will pass exactly as you intended.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm to review your French property, your existing English will or trust, your family position and any letter from the notaire or the tax office. First telephone consultation: 80 EUR including VAT. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22, or write via our contact page with the property address, the date of any gift already made and the document you have been asked to sign.