Your mother lived in the Dordogne for fifteen years. Your father has just died in a hospital in Bordeaux, leaving a house in France, a bank account in London and three children, one of whom lives in Manchester and has not set foot in France for a decade. Within weeks, a French notaire (a public officer who settles estates) writes to you about a déclaration de succession (the French inheritance tax return) to be filed within six months, while a London solicitor asks whether English probate is needed for the UK account. You wonder which country’s law governs the estate, whether you even have to file anything in France, how much tax each heir will pay, and what happens if the deadline slips while the family is still grieving. This guide answers those questions in order: first, the return itself and the law that governs the estate of a Briton who dies in France; second, the French tax bill and every practical way to challenge it when it is late, wrong or simply too heavy. It is written for British heirs, in plain English, with the exact French rules quoted so you can check everything against the official texts.

I. A death in France: do you have to file a French succession return, and which law governs the estate?

A. Do you have to file a déclaration de succession after a death in France, and by when?

The déclaration de succession is the return the heirs (héritiers), donees and legatees must file with the French tax office (service des impôts des particuliers) listing everything the deceased owned, minus deductible debts, so that French inheritance tax (droits de succession) can be assessed. In practice it is almost always prepared and filed by the notaire handling the estate, on printed form 2705 (with schedules 2705-S for the detail of the assets), signed by the heirs. The six-month clock runs even if the family is still arguing about the will, even if the English probate has not been granted, and even if a legatee has not yet obtained délivrance de son legs (formal delivery of the legacy): the heir who looks like the heir must file within the legal deadline.

The deadline itself is set by article 641 of the Code général des impôts, in these terms: « Les délais pour l’enregistrement des déclarations que les héritiers, donataires ou légataires ont à souscrire des biens à eux échus ou transmis par décès sont : 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. » In plain terms: six months from the day of death when the person died in mainland France, one year in every other case, for example where your father died in a Manchester hospital owning a holiday home in France. The official service-public.fr guide states the same rule in everyday language: the return must be filed within 6 months of the day of death, (see Droits de succession – Déclaration – Service Public).

There are narrow cases where no return is due at all. If you refuse (renoncez à) the estate, you file nothing. And where the deceased’s child or grandchild inherits, no return is required if two conditions are both met: the gross estate (actif brut successoral, the total value of the property before deducting debts) is under 50,000 euros, and the heir previously received only gifts that were declared or registered. The French tax administration’s own Q&A confirms the principle (see Dois-je faire une déclaration de succession – impots.gouv.fr). Where tax is genuinely due, however, missing the deadline triggers interest for late payment and a 10 per cent surcharge, explained in section II.B below, so the first reflex after a death in France should be to instruct a notaire quickly rather than waiting for the English side of the estate to be sorted.

Two documents often confused by British families deserve a clear explanation. The acte de notoriété is the deed by which a notaire identifies the heirs and each one’s share; banks and land registries ask for it before releasing funds or transferring property. You need one where the gross estate exceeds 5,965 euros; below that figure, a simple statement signed by all the heirs (attestation signée par tous les héritiers) can be enough to prove you are an heir. And the acte de notoriété does not trap you: article 730-2 of the Code civil provides that « L’affirmation contenue dans l’acte de notoriété n’emporte pas, par elle-même, acceptation de la succession. » Being named in the deed does not by itself mean you have accepted the estate.

Accepting or refusing is itself a protected decision (option successorale). Under article 771 of the Code civil, « L’héritier ne peut être contraint à opter avant l’expiration d’un délai de quatre mois à compter de l’ouverture de la succession. » No creditor, co-heir or authority can force you to choose before four months have passed since the death; only afterwards can you be formally put on notice (sommé, par acte extrajudiciaire, de prendre parti) to accept or refuse. The three options are acceptance pure and simple (acceptation pure et simple), acceptance up to the net value of the assets (acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net, the old bénéfice d’inventaire, which shields you from the deceased’s debts beyond what the estate contains), or refusal (renonciation). Where the estate may be insolvent, for example a French house worth less than the mortgage plus a tax bill, the middle option or refusal deserves serious thought before the four months expire (see Accepter ou renoncer à la succession – Service Public). Keep the refusal registered at the court (tribunal judiciaire) and keep proof of the date: once the return has been filed in your name, unpicking it is far harder.

B. Which law governs the estate of a Briton who dies in France: French law, English law, or both?

Since Brexit changed nothing about this point, the European Succession Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 650/2012, still applied by France to British nationals as third-country nationals) supplies the starting rule. The European Commission summarises the EU succession rules as follows: a succession handled coherently, by a single court applying a single law, (see Successions and wills – European Commission). That single law is, as a rule, the law of the country where the deceased last lived: a Briton habitually resident in France at death therefore sees French law govern the succession as a whole, unless it is clear from all the circumstances that the deceased was manifestly more closely connected with another State, in which case that other State’s law applies instead. Habitual residence is a question of fact, centre of interests, length and regularity of presence, family and social ties, not a stamp in a passport, and for a retiree settled year-round in the Dordogne the answer will normally be France.

The crucial exception is the choice of law (professio juris). As the European Commission explains, people being able to choose between the law of the country where they last lived and that of their nationality, (see Successions and wills – European Commission). A British national can therefore choose English law (or Scots law, for a Scot) to govern the whole estate, and the choice must be made expressly in a declaration in the form of a will, or be shown by the terms of the will. This is the single most valuable clause a British will covering French property can contain, and our companion guide explains how to draft it and what it costs when it is missing (see our guide on choosing English law for a French house). Without a valid choice, French law applies to the France-based Briton, including the forced heirship share (réserve héréditaire).

The réserve héréditaire is the share of the estate the law reserves to the children, which no will can take away. Article 913 of the Code civil fixes it precisely: « 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. » One child reserves one half, two children two thirds, three or more children three quarters; only the remainder (quotité disponible) can pass without restriction to a surviving spouse, a charity or one favoured child. For deaths before the 2021 reform debates, French courts guarded this fiercely even against foreign wills. In a leading published decision, the First Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation, première chambre civile) held, in Cass. 1re civ., 4 July 2018, No 17-16.515, published in the Bulletin, concerning a Moroccan will covering French flats, that « la dévolution successorale desdits immeubles devait tenir compte des règles de la réserve héréditaire, laquelle, d’ordre public interne, ne pouvait être écartée par des dispositions testamentaires établies selon la loi du domicile du défunt et régissant son statut personnel ». The reserved share, a matter of domestic public policy (ordre public interne), could not be brushed aside by testamentary provisions made under the law of the deceased’s domicile. The Court reached the same result through private-international-law reasoning in Cass. 1re civ., 15 May 2018, No 17-11.571, on competing nationalities and renvoi. Since the Act of 24 August 2021, children deprived of any reserved share by a foreign law can in defined cases take compensation from French-sited assets, a mechanism the notaire must now check systematically for British families.

On the English side of the Channel, the mirror image applies: French grants do not operate English assets. Whoever deals with the London account or English shares normally needs an English grant of probate (or letters of administration where there is no will), applied for under the procedure described on GOV.UK – Applying for probate. Expect the English probate registry to ask for the death certificate, the original will and an inheritance-tax account where thresholds require it, and expect the French notaire to ask for a certified copy of the English grant, with a sworn translation (traduction assermentée), before releasing French funds. The two procedures run in parallel and neither replaces the other; a family that waits for English probate before seeing the notaire is the classic way the six-month French deadline is missed.

II. French inheritance tax for British heirs: what you pay, and how to challenge the bill

A. How is the French tax bill calculated when the deceased or the heir is British?

France taxes the worldwide estate where the deceased was fiscally domiciled (domicilié fiscal) in France, and taxes French-sited property even where nobody involved lives in France. Article 750 ter of the Code général des impôts sets the territorial scope: « Sont soumis aux droits de mutation à titre gratuit : 1° Les biens meubles et immeubles situés en France ou hors de France, […] lorsque le donateur ou le défunt a son domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 B ». In short, three situations bring you into French succession tax: the deceased lived in France for tax purposes (worldwide assets taxable), the heir lives in France for tax purposes and has done so for at least six of the last ten years (worldwide assets taxable), or the estate simply contains property in France (that property taxable whatever anyone’s residence). A British retiree domiciled in France who still holds a London flat and English savings therefore faces French tax on the London assets too, not only on the Dordogne house; conversely, children living in Manchester who inherit a French holiday home from a Manchester-domiciled parent pay French tax on the French house.

The courts read this territorial rule strictly, including for Anglo-Saxon arrangements the French system distrusts, such as trusts. In Cass. com., 18 November 2020, No 18-14.242, the Commercial Chamber held that « 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 taxable event is the transfer of ownership, which for assets in a trust happens when the trust distributes to the final beneficiary at winding-up, potentially after the settlor’s death. British families holding French property through a Jersey or Guernsey trust should therefore assume the French tax office will look through the structure at distribution and should disclose the trust to the notaire from the start rather than hoping it stays invisible.

The good news comes in three layers: exemptions, allowances, then rates. First, the surviving spouse (conjoint survivant) and the civil partner (partenaire de Pacs) pay nothing: article 796-0 bis of the Code général des impôts states that « Sont exonérés de droits de mutation par décès le conjoint survivant et le partenaire lié au défunt par un pacte civil de solidarité. » Cohabiting partners (concubins) get no such favour and are taxed at 60 per cent after a tiny allowance, a trap for unmarried British couples in France. Second, each child benefits from a personal allowance (abattement): article 779 of the Code général des impôts provides that « 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 (or the representatives of a predeceased child) deducts 100,000 euros from their share before any rate applies. Third, the progressive scale in the direct line (article 777 of the Code général des impôts) runs from 5 per cent on the slice up to 8,072 euros to 45 per cent beyond 1,805,677 euros, with intermediate bands at 10, 15, 20, 30 and 40 per cent. Debts of the deceased proved at death, the mortgage balance, unpaid care bills, funeral costs within limits, reduce the taxable base, which is why gathering bank statements and loan schedules early directly reduces the bill.

Where both countries claim tax on the same asset, the France-United Kingdom succession convention signed on 21 June 1963 prevents full double taxation. The treaty covers, on the French side, the inheritance tax levied on the hereditary shares, and its mechanics are spelled out in the tax administration’s official commentary (see BOFiP – Convention fiscale France – Royaume-Uni, successions). The State of the deceased’s domicile grants a credit (imputation) for the tax levied by the other State on property treated as situated there, computed under domestic law and capped at the domestic tax. In practice, heirs claiming the credit for British tax against French duties must file special form 2740 in duplicate, and the amount of British tax shown on the certificate is credited as computed under domestic law. Ask the notaire for form 2740 at the first meeting where a UK asset exists; claiming the treaty credit is a paperwork exercise with a deadline, not an automatic refund, and families discover it too late with depressing regularity.

B. Late filing, surcharges and reassessments: how to challenge the French tax office

Missing the six-month deadline costs money in two ways: interest for late payment (intérêts de retard, currently 0.2 per cent per month) from 1 July following death, and a surcharge (majoration). Article 1728 of the Code général des impôts provides that « Le défaut de production dans les délais prescrits d’une déclaration ou d’un acte comportant l’indication d’éléments à retenir pour l’assiette ou la liquidation de l’impôt entraîne l’application, sur le montant des droits mis à la charge du contribuable ou résultant de la déclaration ou de l’acte déposé tardivement, d’une majoration de : a. 10 % en l’absence de mise en demeure […] ». For succession returns specifically, the 10 per cent surcharge applies only from the first day of the seventh month after the six-month deadline expires, which the service-public.fr guide summarises as applying from the 13th month whether the return was due in six months or one year. A return due 30 June and filed the following February therefore attracts both interest and the 10 per cent surcharge on the duties, which on a large estate runs into six figures.

A very recent court decision shows how judges handle these surcharges when the heir fights back. Before the Tribunal judiciaire de Grasse, judgment of 27 May 2026 (case No RG 25/04288), a universal legatee who had filed his return on 1 February 2023 for a deadline of 30 June 2022, assessed at 45,373 euros in late interest and 324,089 euros in 10 per cent surcharge, challenged the penalties after his formal claim (réclamation contentieuse) of 12 September 2023 was rejected in June 2025 and the departmental tax conciliator (conciliateur fiscal départemental) refused a discretionary waiver in August 2025. The court recalled that tax penalties are subject to the general principles of criminal law and may be moderated by the judge down to a full discharge, then ordered: a partial discharge of one half of the 10 per cent surcharge assessed against the heir (324,089 euros),, while rejecting the claim for total discharge and for relief from the interest. Three lessons follow: lateness alone being undisputed does not end the argument, since the judge can halve (or in principle cancel) the surcharge according to the heir’s behaviour; the interest, by contrast, is almost never remitted by the court; and the claim must first travel the full administrative route, formal claim, then conciliator, before the tribunal, each step with its own time limits.

That administrative route is the same whether you dispute a surcharge, the valuation of the French house, or the refusal of a treaty credit. Start with the formal claim (réclamation contentieuse) to the tax office that issued the assessment. Article R*196-1 of the Livre des procédures fiscales sets the outer limit: « Pour être recevables, les réclamations relatives aux impôts autres que les impôts directs locaux et les taxes annexes à ces impôts, doivent être présentées à l’administration au plus tard le 31 décembre de la deuxième année suivant celle, selon le cas : a) De la mise en recouvrement du rôle ou de la notification d’un avis de mise en recouvrement […] ». In practice, claim by 31 December of the second year after the assessment, attaching the valuation evidence, the English probate documents, the treaty form 2740 certificate and a reasoned computation of what you consider due. If the administration rejects the claim expressly or stays silent for six months, appeal to the administrative court (tribunal administratif); in parallel, a request for discretionary relief (remise gracieuse) of penalties can be addressed to the tax office or the departmental conciliator, invoking the family’s good faith, the cross-border complexity and the promptness of the eventual filing. For Paris estates, the competent offices are the Paris tax centres and ultimately the Tribunal administratif de Paris on the administrative side, or the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris for disputes about the civil devolution itself; an heir living in London can appoint a French representative (mandataire) so that notices and summonses do not go astray.

Two preventive moves cost little and save a great deal. First, where the deadline cannot be met because English probate drags on or a co-heir in Manchester refuses to sign, file what can be filed and ask the tax office in writing for extra time before the deadline expires, keeping proof of the request; even if refused, the letter evidences good faith for the later penalty debate. Second, where the estate’s French property may be overvalued by the administration, commission an independent valuation (expertise) from a local agent or surveyor at the time of the return and keep comparable sales: a reassessment (redressement) arriving three years later, proposing a higher value plus surcharges, is answered with contemporaneous evidence, not with indignation. The return signed today is the file the tax office audits tomorrow.

Conclusion

A death in a British family settled in France sets two clocks running at once: the English probate timetable and the French six-month succession timetable, and the French one does not wait. Identify the notaire early, decide within the four-month protected period whether to accept or refuse, file the déclaration de succession on time with the debts proved and the treaty form 2740 where British assets exist, and check whether a choice of English law in the will governs the devolution or whether the children’s reserved shares under article 913 reshape it. Where the bill already exists and looks wrong, the route is mapped: formal claim before 31 December of the second year, conciliator for the penalties, administrative or civil court beyond that, with recent case law showing judges willing to halve a 10 per cent surcharge when the heir’s conduct justifies it. Cross-border estates reward the methodical and punish the hesitant; the family that files, proves and claims in writing keeps every option open.

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