You married in England twenty years ago, moved to France after Brexit on a withdrawal agreement card or a long-stay visa, bought a house near Bordeaux or a flat in Paris, and now the marriage has broken down. The first question is brutally practical: do you divorce in France, where you live, or in England, where you married? The answer has changed since Brexit, and getting it wrong can cost you a year of procedure, a conflicting decree, or a financial order that England will not recognise. Before 2021 a single European rule decided which court heard the case first and the other court stood back; today a French court and an English court can both claim the case at once, and the spouse who files first in the better forum often keeps a lasting advantage on money, the house and the children. This guide, written entirely for the British reader in plain English with every French term explained, sets out where you can file when you live in France, which of the four French divorce routes fits your situation, why the order of filing in France and England now matters more than ever, what the French judge decides about the compensatory payment, the house and the children, how to make the French decree effective back in England, and how to challenge a refusal or an unfair order. Every decisive point is tied to the exact statutory text in force, quoted word for word and linked to the official source, with two recent rulings of the Cour de cassation (France’s supreme court for civil cases) reproduced from their official texts.

I. Where do you file for divorce after Brexit: in France where you live, or in England where you married?

A. How to get divorced in France when you live here: the family court, the four routes and the papers to prepare

If you live in France, the French courts can almost always hear your divorce, whether you married in Gretna Green, Gibraltar or Guildford and whatever passports you hold. Inside France, the case goes to the juge aux affaires familiales (the family court judge) of the tribunal judiciaire (the local civil court). The territorial rule is set by Article 1070 of the Code of Civil Procedure: the court with jurisdiction is, in order, the judge of the place where the family home is, then, if the parents live apart, the judge where the parent with whom the minor children habitually live resides, and otherwise the judge where the spouse who did not start the case lives; for a joint application either spouse’s court will do. In practice, a British couple living together in Lyon files in Lyon, a couple separated with the children schooled in Toulouse files in Toulouse, and a couple whose children have left home files where the respondent lives. Keep proof of residence from day one: rental contracts, utility bills, school certificates and tax notices, because residence on the day of the application fixes jurisdiction and a move afterwards does not shift the case.

French law then offers four routes to divorce, and the choice shapes cost, speed and conflict. The route most British couples have never met is divorce by mutual consent without a judge, created for couples who agree on everything. Article 229 of the Civil Code states: « Les époux peuvent consentir mutuellement à leur divorce par acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats, déposé au rang des minutes d’un notaire. » In ordinary English: both spouses, each advised by their own lawyer, sign a private agreement countersigned by those lawyers setting out the whole settlement — children, house, money — and a notaire (the French public officer who handles conveyancing and family settlements) registers it. No judge, typically two to three months, and modest cost. But there are two hard bars in Article 229-2 of the Civil Code: the no-judge route is closed if a minor child, told by the parents of the right to be heard, asks the judge to hear the child, or if either spouse is under a legal protection regime such as tutelle or curatelle (court-ordered guardianship for vulnerable adults). British families with a teenager who wants a say, or with an elderly parent under protection, must go to court instead.

The three court routes cover every other situation. First, divorce by acceptance of the breakdown: Article 233 of the Civil Code provides that a divorce may be sought jointly where both spouses accept that the marriage has broken down without regard to who caused it, and the acceptance, once given with lawyers’ countersignature or before the judge, cannot be taken back, even on appeal. This is the calm court route for couples who agree the marriage is over but need a judge to settle the home or the money. Second, divorce for definitive alteration of the bond: Article 238 of the Civil Code states: « L’altération définitive du lien conjugal résulte de la cessation de la communauté de vie entre les époux, lorsqu’ils vivent séparés depuis un an lors de la demande en divorce. » One year of separation at the date of the application is enough, and the court does not ask who is at fault. Third, divorce for fault: Article 242 of the Civil Code states: « Le divorce peut être demandé par l’un des époux lorsque des faits constitutifs d’une violation grave ou renouvelée des devoirs et obligations du mariage sont imputables à son conjoint et rendent intolérable le maintien de la vie commune. » Adultery, violence, sustained humiliation or abandonment can qualify, but the petitioner must prove specific facts, and fault litigation is slower, more expensive and more bitter. Spouses can also switch routes mid-case: Article 247 of the Civil Code lets them opt at any point for the no-judge mutual-consent deed, and Article 251 of the Civil Code organises how the ground is pleaded, allowing the petitioner who relies on acceptance or alteration to hold back detailed reasons until first full submissions. For a British couple who broadly agree, the ladder is clear: no-judge consent if possible, acceptance before a judge if a judge is needed, alteration after a year apart if one spouse stalls, fault only where the facts demand it and the evidence exists.

Prepare the file as a French lawyer expects it, because procedure punishes improvisation. You will need the full copy of the marriage certificate with an apostille and a certified French translation, the children’s birth certificates, proof of each spouse’s residence and nationality, the marriage contract if you signed one (many British couples never did, in which case the default regime applies), title deeds for the French house, mortgage statements, bank and pension statements, and three recent payslips or tax assessments each. The application is lodged by a lawyer — representation by an avocat (a lawyer admitted to a French bar) is compulsory in judicial divorce — and the official service-public.fr page on judicial divorce procedure describes each stage from the opening application through the conciliation hearing to judgment. Budget realistically: a no-judge consent typically costs each side a four-figure fee plus the notaire’s registration charge, while a contested alteration or fault case with valuations and pension reports runs to multiples of that and lasts twelve to twenty-four months.

B. France or England first: why the filing order now decides the forum after Brexit

Here is the Brexit rupture that most English solicitors’ old client notes still understate. While the United Kingdom was in the European Union, the Brussels II bis Regulation gave exclusive jurisdiction rules for divorce across Member States with a strict first-seised rule: the court first seised heard the divorce and the second court stayed its proceedings. Since 1 January 2021 that mechanism no longer binds the United Kingdom. An English court applies its own domestic jurisdictional rules, and a French court applies the European rule, now Brussels II ter (Regulation 2019/1111), on its side. The result is that parallel divorces in London and Paris are possible, each court applying its own test, with no automatic duty on the English court to defer to Paris or on the French court to defer to London. For British couples this creates a genuine race: the financial orders, pension-sharing powers and housing outcomes differ markedly between the two countries, so the spouse who chooses the forum first often shapes the entire settlement.

On the French side, the jurisdictional test is generous to residents. The Cour de cassation confirmed under the predecessor regulation, in terms that remain the working logic under Brussels II ter, that: « une juridiction d’un Etat membre est compétente pour connaître d’une demande en divorce, dès lors que l’un des critères alternatifs de compétence qu’il énonce est localisé sur le territoire de cet Etat, peu important que les époux soient ressortissants d’Etats tiers ou que l’époux défendeur soit domicilié dans un Etat tiers. » (Cass. Civ. 1re, 24 June 2020, No 19-11.714). In plain terms, a French court is competent as soon as one of the alternative connecting factors — habitual residence of either spouse, common nationality, and the other listed links — sits in France, regardless of passports or of where the other spouse lives. The same ruling censured an appeal court for declaring the French courts incompetent without examining those criteria: « En statuant ainsi, sans examiner, comme il lui incombait, sa compétence au regard des critères qu’il énonce, la cour d’appel a violé le texte susvisé. » (Cass. Civ. 1re, 24 June 2020, No 19-11.714). For a British couple habitually resident in France, the message is reassuring: the Dijon-style objection that European rules only cover nationals of Member States is wrong in law, and a British resident refused on that ground should appeal. Under Brussels II ter the same alternative-criteria logic continues, and French courts routinely accept jurisdiction where both spouses, or the applicant after a qualifying period of residence, live in France.

On the English side, the court asks whether either party is domiciled or habitually resident in England and Wales when proceedings begin, and it exercises a discretion to stay in favour of a foreign forum that is plainly more appropriate. Because there is no longer a binding first-seised rule between London and Paris, an English judge may let an English petition proceed even though a French case started earlier, and vice versa. That is why parallel tactics have multiplied: one spouse files in Paris to secure French property and compensatory-payment logic, the other files in London to seek English pension-sharing and needs-based orders, and each then asks the other court to stay. The practical lesson is to take coordinated advice in both countries before anyone files. Identify which forum serves your interests — England is often more generous to the financially weaker spouse with intervening pension-sharing orders, while France offers the no-judge consent route and a more formulaic capital payment — then file decisively in that forum with a complete petition, and immediately seek a stay of any later competing case, attaching proof of the first filing, translations and evidence of habitual residence. Never file in both countries yourself to keep options open: duplicate filings multiply costs, create contradictory interim orders on the house and the children, and damage credibility with both judges.

Applicable law is a separate question from jurisdiction, and the distinction matters daily. A French court with jurisdiction generally applies French divorce law to dissolve the marriage, even if you married in England under English ceremony, because divorce as status is governed by the law of the forum in the French approach for most cases reaching the family judge. The money consequences of the marriage — which assets are common, which are separate, how they are divided — follow a different track, the matrimonial property regime, which for British couples married without a contract is often far from obvious. Our companion analysis of which matrimonial regime owns your French house and what happens on divorce or death explains how English, French and Hague Convention rules interact; read it alongside this guide before you negotiate, because the regime decides what there is to divide before the divorce judge decides how to divide it. Parental responsibility and maintenance also follow their own European and Hague instruments, so the nationality of the children changes nothing about the French judge’s power to regulate residence, contact and support where the children live in France.

II. What the French divorce actually settles: money, the French house and the children, and getting England to recognise it

A. How much is paid and who keeps the house: the compensatory payment, fault and the matrimonial regime

The financial heart of a French divorce is the prestation compensatoire (the compensatory payment, usually a lump sum of capital designed to offset the living-standard gap the divorce creates). Article 270 of the Civil Code opens with the principle: « Le divorce met fin au devoir de secours entre époux. » The duty of support ends with divorce, and in its place one spouse may be ordered to pay the other a fixed sum compensating, as far as possible, the disparity the breakdown creates in their respective living conditions. Article 271 of the Civil Code then lists what the judge must weigh: length of the marriage, age and health, professional qualifications and positions, career sacrifices made for the children or for the other spouse’s career, estimated present and future property and income after liquidation of the regime, existing and foreseeable rights, and respective pension positions. For British couples this last factor bites hard: a spouse who followed the other to France, gave up a National Health Service career or an English partnership track, and arrives at sixty with a thin pension record beside a spouse with a full French and British pension history is the textbook recipient. Gather pension statements from both countries early, including State Pension forecasts from Newcastle and French relevés de carrière (career records), because judges decide on documents, not on recollection.

Two recent words from the Cour de cassation should be read by every British spouse tempted to argue that inequality predated the wedding. The court restated the statutory core: « l’un des époux peut être tenu de verser à l’autre une prestation destinée à compenser, autant qu’il est possible, la disparité que la rupture du mariage crée dans les conditions de vie respectives » (Cass. Civ. 1re, 10 Dec. 2025, No 24-13.557). It then drew the consequence that defeats the commonest defence: « la différence de situation professionnelle ou de rémunération patrimoniale existant entre les époux antérieurement au mariage ne peut être un critère de refus d’octroi de la prestation compensatoire puisque celle-ci vise à maintenir la parité qu’assurait l’union matrimoniale » (Cass. Civ. 1re, 10 Dec. 2025, No 24-13.557). The assessment is made at the date of the divorce, which ends the duty of support, not by rewinding to the wedding day. So the fact that the husband already earned more when you married in Leeds in 2004 does not defeat the claim; what counts is the gap the divorce creates now, measured against needs, resources and foreseeable trajectories. Note the court’s further warning: the judge may still refuse the payment where fairness so requires, for example where the divorce is pronounced on the exclusive fault of the claimant in the particular circumstances of the breakdown — see the closing words of Article 270 of the Civil Code. Fault therefore cuts both ways: it can ground the divorce under Article 242 of the Civil Code, but exclusive fault can forfeit the compensation.

The French house is divided in a second operation that many British litigants confuse with the divorce itself: liquidation of the matrimonial regime. Until the regime is liquidated, divorced spouses remain in indivision (joint undivided ownership), each owning a share of the whole, and neither can sell alone. If you married in England without a marriage contract and lived in France, determining the regime — English separation of property by default for many English marriages, or a community regime acquired through French connections — requires careful conflict-of-laws analysis, set out in the companion guide linked above. Practically, commission a valuation by an agent immobilier (estate agent) plus, for contested cases, an expert valuation, obtain the mortgage redemption figure, and decide early whether one spouse keeps the house with a balancing payment (a soulte, the equalising sum) or the house is sold and the proceeds split. Where minor children live in the home, the judge can grant a temporary right to remain and allocate housing costs in interim orders, but the final attribution follows the liquidation, not sentiment. Do not stop paying the mortgage to force a sale: arrears damage both credit records, trigger the lender’s acceleration clause, and count against you on costs and compensation.

Challenging the financial orders follows strict clocks. An appeal (appel) against the divorce judgment goes to the cour d’appel (the appeal court) within one month of service of the judgment by a bailiff, and it reviews facts and law. A further appeal on law only (pourvoi en cassation) goes to the Cour de cassation, which checks legal reasoning, not the fairness of the amount. Interim orders on housing, children and support can be revisited when circumstances change through a fresh application to the family judge rather than a full appeal. Where the dispute is really about the regime — for instance whether the Dordogne house was common or separate property — the action for liquidation and partition (action en liquidation et partage) is brought before the tribunal judiciaire with the notaire’s draft settlement (état liquidatif), land registry extracts and bank tracing evidence. In every challenge, attach the exact documents the first judge lacked: updated valuations, pension forecasts, loan statements and proof of the children’s needs. French appellate judges reverse for missing evidence far more readily than for rhetoric.

B. Children, civil-status papers and recognition in England: making the French decree work on both sides of the Channel

Where minor children live in France, the French family judge regulates everything about them regardless of their passports: exercise of parental authority (autorité parentale, the bundle of rights and duties over the child’s person and property, normally joint), the child’s habitual residence, contact schedules, holiday division across the Channel, and the contribution to maintenance and education (contribution à l’entretien et à l’éducation, the monthly support payment). Judges decide by the child’s best interests with strong continuity for schooling: a child settled in a French school with friends, medical follow-up and extracurricular life will rarely be ordered to relocate to England mid-year absent serious reasons. Build the file around the child, not the dispute: school reports, medical certificates, timetables showing who does pickups and homework, and a realistic cross-Channel contact plan with flight costs, handover points and video-call routines. Maintenance is fixed from needs and resources on documents, indexed annually, and enforced through direct payment orders, wage attachment and, for cross-border cases, the European and Hague maintenance instruments that continue to operate between France and the United Kingdom.

After the decree, French paperwork must be put in order or the divorce remains invisible to administrations. Article 1082 of the Code of Civil Procedure requires a note of the divorce to be entered in the margin of the marriage certificate and of each spouse’s birth certificate on production of an extract showing only the operative part with proof it is enforceable; where the marriage was celebrated abroad with no French marriage record, the note goes against birth records held in France or, failing that, the extract is kept at the central civil-status register in Nantes (the service central d’état civil, the Foreign Ministry office holding records of French nationals’ life events abroad). For a British couple married in England, the practical route is: obtain the enforceable judgment extract, have it translated where needed, and ask for registration so that later dealings — remarriage, a new PACS (the French civil partnership), passport renewal for a French-British spouse, or a sale of the French house as a single owner — are not blocked by a still-married civil record. The English decree of absolute finality plays the mirror role on the English side and should be kept with the French papers for life.

Recognition in England of a French divorce is governed by domestic English law since Brexit, principally Part II of the Family Law Act 1986 on overseas divorces, with the detailed Home Office practice in the gov.uk guidance on overseas divorces. The broad scheme is that an overseas divorce obtained by judicial or other proceedings is recognised in England and Wales if it is effective under the law of the country where it was obtained and, at the relevant date, either party was habitually resident or domiciled there or was a national of that country. A French judicial divorce pronounced for spouses habitually resident in France therefore normally qualifies for recognition, and the no-judge mutual-consent divorce, being effective under French law through the notaire’s registration, is in principle capable of recognition as a divorce obtained otherwise than by proceedings, subject to its own conditions and proof. Keep the complete chain: the French judgment or registered agreement, the certificate of enforceability, certified translations, and proof of habitual residence in France at the relevant date. Where recognition is disputed — typically when one spouse remarries in England and the other objects, or when pension trustees ask questions — the question is put to the High Court for a declaration of marital status, with expert evidence of French law.

Two traps deserve emphasis because they recur in British files. First, the English financial remedy after a foreign divorce: even where the French divorce is recognised, the English court retains a power under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 to grant additional financial relief in England where the French settlement left a real gap and England is the appropriate place. A spouse who accepted a modest French capital sum without pension analysis may therefore face, or launch, a second financial case in London. Settle pensions expressly and globally in the French agreement with English-law advice alongside, or the file may never close. Second, limitation and enforcement clocks: register, translate and transmit the French decree promptly, serve the English pension providers and the French land registry (service de publicité foncière, the office recording property transfers) without delay, and diary every appeal deadline from the date of service, not the date of the hearing. If the French court declares itself incompetent on a wrong ground — for instance by holding, contrary to the ruling cited above, that European jurisdiction rules only protect nationals of Member States — appeal within the month citing Cass. Civ. 1re, 24 June 2020, No 19-11.714 expressly. If compensation is refused only because inequality predated the marriage, appeal citing Cass. Civ. 1re, 10 Dec. 2025, No 24-13.557 and file updated needs, resources and pension evidence. In cross-Channel divorce, the careful litigant wins twice: once on the forum, once on the papers.

Conclusion

A British couple living in France after Brexit will normally divorce in France, before the family judge of the family home or of the children’s residence, choosing among the no-judge mutual-consent deed and the three court routes of acceptance, alteration after one year’s separation and fault. Since Brexit there is no automatic first-seised rule between Paris and London, so take joint French and English advice before filing, file first in the forum that serves the family’s interests, and seek a stay of any competing case with proof of the earlier filing. In France, expect the money to turn on the compensatory payment measured at the divorce date against needs, resources and pensions — with pre-marriage inequality no defence — and the house to be divided in a separate liquidation of the matrimonial regime, with interim housing and children’s orders bridging the gap. Then close the cross-Channel loop: register the decree on the French civil-status records, secure its recognition in England under the Family Law Act 1986 with translations and residence proof, settle pensions globally to shut out a second English financial claim, and challenge errors within the one-month appeal clock with the missing documents attached. Handled in that order — forum first, routes second, money and children third, papers and recognition last — a Franco-British divorce ends in two countries at once, instead of lingering in either.