When a British owner of a French house dies, the family asks two questions in the same breath: does France take a share, and how long do we have to sort it out? Since Brexit the answer turns on rules that never left French domestic law. Britain’s departure from the European Union changed visas, residence cards and the right to work, but the French tax on inheritances, the droits de succession, is governed by the General Tax Code, the Code général des impôts, and by French case law, not by European freedom of movement. A British estate with French assets therefore pays under exactly the same articles as a French estate, with the same rates, the same allowances and the same filing deadlines, and it is assessed by the same tax office. What Brexit changed is the background: more British owners are now non-resident, more heirs live across the Channel from the deceased, and every file has a cross-border element that the notaire settling the estate, the notaire, must fit into the territorial rules. This article explains, for a British reader, when France taxes the estate at all, how double taxation with Britain is relieved, what the heirs actually pay, the date by which the return must be filed, and how to challenge an assessment that looks wrong. Every French term is translated at first use, and every decisive statement is tied to the statute or decision that says it.

I. When France taxes a British estate after Brexit: domicile, French property and relief from double tax

France does not tax every British death, and it does not tax every French house in the same way. Three situations bring an estate within French succession duty, and they all flow from one article, article 750 ter of the General Tax Code. The first situation is the worldwide one: where the deceased had their tax domicile in France, France taxes the movable and immovable property situated in France or outside France. The statute says this “lorsque le donateur ou le défunt a son domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 B”, when the donor or the deceased had their tax domicile in France within the meaning of article 4 B. (article 750 ter du code général des impôts) The second situation is the territorial one: where the deceased was not domiciled in France, France still taxes the movable and immovable property situated in France, because the statute applies “lorsque le donateur ou le défunt n’a pas son domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article précité”, when the donor or the deceased did not have their tax domicile in France. (article 750 ter du code général des impôts) The third situation looks at the heir rather than the deceased: property received by an heir, donee or legatee who is domiciled in France for tax purposes can also fall within the charge, even where neither the deceased nor the asset is French. The Cour de cassation, the supreme court for civil and criminal matters, confirmed this threefold reading in commercial chamber on 18 November 2020, holding that “Selon ce texte, sont soumis aux droits de mutation à titre gratuit 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 et ceux reçus par l’héritier, le donataire ou le légataire qui a son domicile fiscal en France au sens de cet article.” (Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, financière et économique, 18 novembre 2020, pourvoi n° 18-14.242, arrêt n° 673 F-P+B) In plain English: worldwide assets where the deceased was domiciled in France, French assets where the deceased was not, and assets received by an heir domiciled in France. A British retiree settled in the Dordogne who dies domiciled in France leaves a worldwide estate taxable in France. A British owner who always lived in Kent and kept a holiday cottage near Sarlat leaves an estate taxable in France on the cottage alone. And a British heir living in Lyon who inherits English assets from a parent who died in Manchester may find France taxing that receipt. Each case starts with the same question, which is where the deceased, and sometimes the heir, was domiciled for tax purposes.

A. The domicile test that decides everything: the three criteria, the treaty override and what the judges did with a trust

Tax domicile, the domicile fiscal, is defined by article 4 B of the General Tax Code, and it rests on three alternative criteria. The first is the home: “Les personnes qui ont en France leur foyer ou le lieu de leur séjour principal”, persons who have their household or their principal place of residence in France. (article 4 B du code général des impôts) The second is professional activity: “Celles qui exercent en France une activité professionnelle, salariée ou non”, persons who carry on a professional activity in France, employed or not, unless they show that the activity is merely accessory. (article 4 B du code général des impôts) The third is economic centre: “Celles qui ont en France le centre de leurs intérêts économiques”, persons who have the centre of their economic interests in France. (article 4 B du code général des impôts) Meeting any one of the three is enough to be treated as domiciled in France, although the article itself then yields to the tie-breaker of an applicable double tax convention, which can attribute residence to the other State. For a British reader the practical reading is straightforward. A retiree who lives year-round in France, with the French house as the family home, is domiciled in France under the first criterion even though the pension comes from Britain. A consultant who works remotely from France for British clients is caught by the second unless the French activity is genuinely secondary. An owner who lives in London but keeps most investments, rental income and bank balances in France may be caught by the third. Conversely, the owner of a pure holiday home, occupied a few weeks a year, with family, work and money in Britain, is not domiciled in France, and France taxes only the French property. The borderline cases are the ones to document early: keep the evidence of where the household actually lives, school certificates, medical registration, utility bills and travel records, because the tax office will ask for it and the notaire cannot argue domicile without it.

The Cour de cassation decision of 18 November 2020 deserves attention from British families for a second reason, because it concerned a trust, and trusts are the vehicle many British wills use. In that case the assets were placed in a trust, and the court had to decide when the transfer of ownership, the fait générateur of the duty, actually happened. It 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.” (Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, 18 novembre 2020, pourvoi n° 18-14.242, arrêt n° 673 F-P+B) The chargeable event for property in a trust is the transfer of ownership, which happens through distribution of the trust assets to the final beneficiary when the trust closes, and that date can come after the settlor’s death. The Versailles Court of Appeal had treated the beneficiary as already owner at the first death and the duties as wrongly paid; the Cour de cassation quashed that analysis entirely, ordering “CASSE ET ANNULE, en toutes ses dispositions, l’arrêt rendu le 12 janvier 2018, entre les parties, par la cour d’appel de Versailles”, and sending the case to the Paris Court of Appeal. (Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, 18 novembre 2020, pourvoi n° 18-14.242, arrêt n° 673 F-P+B) For a British family with a trust holding French assets, the lesson is concrete: the French tax point may not be the death itself but the later distribution, and the structure of the trust deed determines when France taxes. British families who hold French property through a trust should read this alongside the rules on declaring the trust in France, its wealth-tax treatment and its succession consequences, set out for British readers in the guide to British family trusts and France after Brexit, and they should settle the applicable-law question in the will itself, choosing English law where appropriate as explained in the guide to British wills over French houses after Brexit, because the tax analysis in this article and the civil analysis of who inherits are two halves of the same file.

B. Paying in both countries? The French credit for foreign tax, the old treaty with Britain and the British side of the relief

Where France taxes assets that Britain also taxes, double taxation is relieved first by a French domestic mechanism. Article 784 A of the General Tax Code provides that “le montant des droits de mutation à titre gratuit acquitté, le cas échéant, hors de France est imputable sur l’impôt exigible en France. Cette imputation est limitée à l’impôt acquitté sur les biens meubles et immeubles situés hors de France.” (article 784 A du code général des impôts, article 784 A du code général des impôts) The amount of transfer duty paid outside France is credited against the tax due in France, limited to the tax paid on movable and immovable property situated outside France. In the cases defined by article 750 ter, in other words, the French bill is reduced euro for euro by the foreign tax on the foreign assets, up to the French tax on those assets. A Paris decision of 26 May 2025 shows how generously the courts read this credit. A woman domiciled in Switzerland had received shares under a shared family gift, a donation-partage, and had paid 204,330 Swiss francs, about 183,897 euros, to the canton of Vaud. She claimed restitution of the equivalent sum on the French side under article 784 A. The tax office accepted only 110,179 euros, keeping 73,718 euros back by recalculating the foreign tax in proportion to the French taxable base, the bare-ownership value against the full-ownership value. She sued before the Paris judicial court, the tribunal judiciaire de Paris, lost at first instance, and appealed. The Paris Court of Appeal recalled the purpose of the text: “En l’absence de convention fiscale internationale il est prévu un mécanisme d’imputation des droits de donation, afin de limiter les cas de doubles impositions selon les modalités de l’article 784 A du code général des impôts.” (Cour d’appel de Paris, Pôle 5, Chambre 10, 26 mai 2025, RG n° 22/17216, arrêt RG 22/17216) Then it rejected the administration’s proportional recalculation: “l’application de ce texte justifie de prendre en compte, pour l’imputation, le montant de l’impôt acquitté en raison même de la mutation des biens situés à l’étranger indépendamment de ses modalités de calcul.” (Cour d’appel de Paris, Pôle 5, Chambre 10, 26 mai 2025, RG n° 22/17216, arrêt RG 22/17216) The credit takes the amount of foreign tax actually paid because of the transfer of the foreign assets, regardless of how the foreign country computed it. The court set aside the first judgment and ordered the State to repay: “Fait droit à la demande de restitution complémentaire de Mme [Y] [N] et dit que l’Etat est tenu de lui restituer la somme de 73 718 euros avec intérêts au taux légal à compter du 5 septembre 2019”. (Cour d’appel de Paris, Pôle 5, Chambre 10, 26 mai 2025, RG n° 22/17216, arrêt RG 22/17216) The case concerned a lifetime gift rather than a death, but article 784 A governs both identically as duties on gratuitous transfers, and the reasoning carries straight across to a succession: keep every foreign assessment and receipt, claim the full foreign amount, and refuse a proportional haircut that the statute does not authorise.

The British side completes the picture. The United Kingdom publishes guidance on Inheritance Tax double taxation relief which warns that the old arrangements with France differ from modern treaties, noting that they date from before 1975, the estate-duty era, and work differently (Inheritance Tax: Double Taxation Relief, GOV.UK) The France-United Kingdom arrangement dates from the estate-duty era and does not work like a current treaty, so families must check its precise scope rather than assume a modern credit mechanism. Where no convention covers the transfer, British law provides its own backstop, unilateral relief: HMRC guidance describes unilateral relief as a credit against Inheritance Tax for the tax charged by another country on assets situated in that country (Inheritance Tax: Double Taxation Relief, GOV.UK) The credit is capped at the British tax on the same asset, so the family pays the higher of the two charges once, not both added together. In practice the two systems mirror each other: France credits the British tax on non-French assets under article 784 A, and Britain credits the French tax on French-situated assets under unilateral relief or the old convention. The executor or the heir should therefore run both computations before paying either in full, because paying the whole French bill and the whole British bill and asking questions later leaves money locked in two treasuries for months. Ask the notaire to compute the French duty net of the foreign credit, ask the British adviser to compute the Inheritance Tax net of the French payment, keep the assessments from each country as the proof for the other, and file each claim within its own deadline.

II. What the heirs pay, when the return is due and how to challenge the assessment

Once France has jurisdiction, the arithmetic is mechanical and the timetable is strict. The rate depends on the family link between the deceased and each heir, applied to each heir’s net share after allowances. The return, the déclaration de succession, must be filed within months of the death with payment attached, and late payment draws interest automatically. Then, if the assessment is wrong, a fixed procedure leads from the prior claim to the court, with a limitation period that recently defeated the tax office itself. Each of these steps is examined in turn, with the figures a British family can check on its own file.

A. Rates, the 100,000-euro allowance, the exempt spouse and the deadline with interest running

The statute sets the principle in one sentence: “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”. (article 777 du code général des impôts, article 777 du code général des impôts) The duties are fixed at the rates in the tables below, on the net share coming to each beneficiary. In the direct line, children and parents, the bands run from 5 per cent on the slice up to 8,072 euros, 10 per cent from 8,072 to 12,109 euros, 15 per cent from 12,109 to 15,932 euros, 20 per cent from 15,932 to 552,324 euros, 30 per cent to 902,838 euros, 40 per cent to 1,805,677 euros, and 45 per cent above. Between brothers and sisters the rate is 35 per cent up to 24,430 euros and 45 per cent above. Between relatives up to the fourth degree it is 55 per cent, and between more distant relatives or unrelated persons 60 per cent. Before the rate bites, each heir subtracts a personal allowance, and the principal one is large: “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 du code général des impôts, article 779 du code général des impôts) Each parent and each living child, or child represented after predecease or renunciation, deducts 100,000 euros from their share. Take a concrete British example. A widowed mother dies domiciled in France leaving a French house worth 400,000 euros to her only son. His net share is 400,000 euros, minus the 100,000-euro allowance, leaving 300,000 euros taxable. The bands give 5 per cent of 8,072 euros, which is 403.60 euros; 10 per cent of the 4,037 euros between 8,072 and 12,109, which is 403.70 euros; 15 per cent of the 3,823 euros between 12,109 and 15,932, which is 573.45 euros; and 20 per cent of the remaining 284,068 euros, which is 56,813.60 euros. The total is about 58,194 euros. The French administration publishes the same method in English for non-residents, confirming the same 100,000-euro allowance for a child, father or mother, computed under the same methods as for residents (Calculating death duties, impots.gouv.fr) Non-resident heirs get the same allowances as residents. The surviving husband, wife or civil partner pays nothing at all: “Sont exonérés de droits de mutation par décès le conjoint survivant et le partenaire lié au défunt par un pacte civil de solidarité.” (article 796-0 bis du code général des impôts, article 796-0 bis du code général des impôts) The surviving spouse and the partner bound by a civil solidarity pact, the PACS, are exempt from death duties, a position the English-language official guidance confirms for the surviving spouse or civil union partner (Calculating death duties, impots.gouv.fr) A brother or sister can also be exempt, but only on three strict conditions reflected in article 796-0 ter: single, widowed, divorced or legally separated at the death, over fifty or unable to work through infirmity, and constantly domiciled with the deceased during the five years before death. Families who assume that a British civil partner or a long-term unmarried companion is treated like a spouse should check the exact status: marriage and PACS exempt, cohabitation without PACS does not.

The return must then be filed fast, and the deadline depends on where the death occurred. Article 641 of the General Tax Code fixes it: “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.” (article 641 du code général des impôts, article 641 du code général des impôts) Six months from the death where the deceased died in metropolitan France, one year in all other cases. For a British family this usually means twelve months where the parent died in Britain leaving a French cottage, and six months where the parent died at home in France. The English-language official guidance states the same six-month and twelve-month time limits (Calculating death duties, impots.gouv.fr) Non-resident heirs file with the Non-Residents Collection Office, and the guidance adds that payment accompanies the declaration, so the duty is paid when the return goes in, not after a later demand. Missing the date costs money automatically, because “Toute créance de nature fiscale, dont l’établissement ou le recouvrement incombe aux administrations fiscales, qui n’a pas été acquittée dans le délai légal donne lieu au versement d’un intérêt de retard.” (article 1727 du code général des impôts, article 1727 du code général des impôts) Any tax debt not paid within the legal period draws late-payment interest, on top of any penalties the office adds. In practice the notaire prepares the déclaration de succession, values each asset, subtracts the allowances, applies the credit for foreign tax under article 784 A, and files with payment inside the six or twelve months. Where the estate is complex, partial payment with a reasoned request for time can stop interest running on the amount paid, but the request must be made, reasoned and documented; silence never suspends the clock. Heirs who discover a French asset late, an account, a share portfolio, a second plot of land, must file a corrective return rather than wait for the office to find it, because a spontaneous correction always costs less than a reassessment.

B. Challenging the bill: the prior claim to the tax office, the court that hears these cases and the time limit that beat the administration

A French succession assessment is never the last word, and the challenge follows a fixed two-stage path. The first stage is compulsory: before any court, the heir writes to the office. The Book of Tax Procedures, the Livre des procédures fiscales, states that “Le contribuable qui désire contester tout ou partie d’un impôt qui le concerne doit d’abord adresser une réclamation au service territorial, selon le cas, de la direction générale des finances publiques ou de la direction générale des douanes et droits indirects dont dépend le lieu de l’imposition.” (article R*190-1 du livre des procédures fiscales, article R*190-1 du livre des procédures fiscales) The taxpayer who wishes to dispute all or part of a tax must first send a claim to the local office of the public finances administration for the place of taxation. The same book defines what the claim can seek: “Les réclamations relatives aux impôts, contributions, droits, taxes, redevances, soultes et pénalités de toute nature, établis ou recouvrés par les agents de l’administration, relèvent de la juridiction contentieuse lorsqu’elles tendent à obtenir soit la réparation d’erreurs commises dans l’assiette ou le calcul des impositions, soit le bénéfice d’un droit résultant d’une disposition législative ou réglementaire.” (article L190 du livre des procédures fiscales, article L190 du livre des procédures fiscales) Claims belong to the contentious jurisdiction where they seek either correction of errors in the base or computation, or the benefit of a right from statute or regulation. In ordinary language: wrong valuation, wrong band, forgotten allowance, forgotten spouse exemption, forgotten foreign-tax credit, or a right the statute grants, all go through this claim. The claim should be sent by tracked post or filed online with proof of sending, state the tax, the year, the amount disputed and the exact legal ground, attach the valuation evidence, the foreign assessment for a credit claim, or the marriage certificate for a spouse exemption, and ask expressly for discharge or reduction. If the office rejects expressly or stays silent for six months, the heir goes to court, and for registration duties including succession duty that court is the judicial court, the tribunal judiciaire, as the Paris case above illustrates, where the taxpayer sued the administration “devant le tribunal judiciaire de Paris” after the partial refusal. The practical consequence for a British heir living in Britain is that the case is heard in France, in French, before the court of the place of taxation, which is why appointing a French representative and a notaire who answers the office in writing from the start matters more than arriving in person months later.

The most common grounds in British files are valuation of the French house, domicile classification, and the foreign-tax credit, and a recent supreme court decision adds a fourth weapon, time itself. On 29 May 2024 the Cour de cassation restated the administration’s recovery deadline for registration duties: “Selon les articles L. 180 et L. 186 du livre des procédures fiscales, le droit de reprise de l’administration à l’égard des droits d’enregistrement, de la taxe de publicité foncière, des droits de timbre ainsi que des taxes, redevances et autres impositions assimilées se prescrit par six ans dès lors que la connaissance de l’exigibilité des droits ne résulte pas de manière certaine et directe du seul examen d’un acte enregistré ou présenté à la formalité et que des recherches ultérieures sont nécessaires. Cependant, ce droit de reprise s’exerce jusqu’à l’expiration de la troisième année suivant celle de l’enregistrement d’un acte ou d’une déclaration si l’exigibilité des droits et taxes a été suffisamment révélée par le document enregistré ou présenté à la formalité.” (Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, financière et économique, 29 mai 2024, pourvoi n° 22-24.008, arrêt n° 311 F-D) Six years where later research was needed, three years where the registered deed or return already revealed enough. In that case the succession return of 1 August 2014, with the 2012 will and its 2013 codicil annexed, had given the office everything it needed, so the later reassessment came too late, and the court dismissed the administration’s appeal outright: “REJETTE le pourvoi”. (Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, 29 mai 2024, pourvoi n° 22-24.008, arrêt n° 311 F-D) The tax office paid the costs and 3,000 euros under article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure. For British estates the guidance is direct. File a complete, transparent return with the will, the codicils, the valuations and the foreign assessments annexed, because a full file starts the three-year clock rather than the six-year one. Then, if a reassessment arrives years later, check its date against what the office already knew: a demand built entirely on documents the family filed and the office registered may already be out of time. Valuation disputes deserve the same discipline. The office values the French house at its market value on the death date, the valeur vénale, and heirs who answer with a reasoned estate-agent appraisal, comparable sales in the commune and photographs of defects do far better than heirs who simply call the figure too high. Where the dispute turns on that value alone, the procedure can involve a court-appointed expert valuation, so commissioning an independent appraisal at the claim stage is money well spent. Keep every paper: the return with its proof of filing, the payment receipts, the foreign assessments with translations, the appraisals, and every letter to and from the office, because the file that wins is the file that proves dates.

Conclusion

A British estate pays French succession duty in three situations: worldwide assets where the deceased was domiciled in France under article 4 B, French assets where the deceased was not, and assets received by an heir domiciled in France, as article 750 ter and the Cour de cassation of 18 November 2020 establish. Double taxation is relieved by the French credit for foreign tax under article 784 A, read generously by the Paris Court of Appeal on 26 May 2025, alongside the old France-United Kingdom estate arrangement and British unilateral relief. The price itself follows article 777 after the 100,000-euro allowance of article 779, with the surviving spouse and PACS partner fully exempt under article 796-0 bis; the return goes in within six months of a death in France or twelve months of a death abroad under article 641, with payment attached for non-residents, and late payment draws interest under article 1727. A wrong bill is answered first by a reasoned claim to the local office under article R*190-1 seeking correction of an error or the benefit of a statutory right under article L190, then before the judicial court, and a reassessment that merely reuses what a complete return already revealed may fail on the three-year limit the Cour de cassation enforced on 29 May 2024. The current texts control every step, and they move: the articles cited above at article 750 ter, article 4 B, article 784 A, article 777, article 779, article 796-0 bis, article 641, article 1727, article R*190-1 and article L190, the three decisions at Cass. com. 18 November 2020, no. 18-14.242, Paris Court of Appeal 26 May 2025, RG 22/17216 and Cass. com. 29 May 2024, no. 22-24.008, the official computation guide at impots.gouv.fr and the British relief guidance at GOV.UK state the position at the date of writing. The family that identifies domicile first, files within the months allowed, claims every allowance and credit with proof, and answers a wrong assessment with a dated claim keeps the French share of the estate exactly where the statutes put it, and nowhere else.