Your mother lived her last ten years in the Dordogne. After the funeral, the French notaire — the public officer who settles every succession with French property in it — sends you a statement of distribution, the décompte. Your brother, who stayed in England, received the house near Sarlat as a lifetime gift five years ago. You receive a bank balance and an apology: once that gift is counted, your share is far smaller than you imagined. Under English law you might have accepted it; a testator disposes freely. Under French law, you do not have to. Children of the deceased are héritiers réservataires, forced heirs, and the law guarantees them a minimum portion of the estate that no gift and no will can take away.
This article explains, for a British heir after Brexit, how that guaranteed portion is calculated, how lifetime gifts are brought back into the arithmetic, and what to do when the figures look wrong. It covers the action that cuts excessive gifts down to size, the action en réduction, the penalty for an heir who hides assets, the recel successoral, and the French inheritance tax net that catches British heirs. Every rule below is the French rule actually applied by the French courts to successions opened in France, including successions of British nationals living in France. Where the applicable law itself was chosen by will — a choice English testators often make — the companion guide on choosing English law for a French house while keeping children protected explains the planning side; this article covers the dispute side, when the succession is already open and you must defend your share.
I. The Notaire Says Your Share Is Smaller Than Expected: How the French Forced Share Is Really Calculated
A. How British heirs check the forced share and the disposable portion after the notaire’s statement
The starting point is a definition that surprises every English-trained reader. Under Article 912 of the Civil Code, 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. In plain English: the réserve héréditaire, the forced share, is the slice of the estate the statute keeps free of charges for certain protected heirs — above all the children — provided they accept the succession. What is left over is the quotité disponible, the disposable portion, the slice the deceased was free to give to anyone, child or stranger, by lifetime gift or by will. The same article defines it as the portion which is not reserved by statute and which the deceased could freely dispose of by gifts. The two portions always add up to the whole estate; enlarging one shrinks the other, and that is why every dispute starts by fixing their sizes.
The sizes are fixed by Article 913 of the Civil Code, and the wording leaves no room for negotiation: 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. So a British parent with one child could freely give away half the estate; with two children, one third; with three or more children, one quarter. Mirror those fractions and you get the children’s guaranteed collective reserve: one half with one child, two thirds with two children, three quarters with three or more. With two children, each child’s individual reserve is therefore one third of the recalculated estate — not one third of whatever happens to be left in the bank accounts on the day of death, but one third of a legally reconstructed total, as explained below. That reconstruction is the step most British heirs miss, and the step on which challenges are won or lost.
One Brexit-specific refinement matters here. Since the statute of 2021, Article 913 adds a compensatory mechanism for families straddling legal systems: where the deceased or at least one child was, at the time of death, a national of a European Union Member State or habitually resident there, and where the foreign law governing the succession offers children no forced-share protection at all, each child may take a compensatory levy on property situated in France so as to recover the French forced-share rights, within their limits. For a British family this paragraph rarely decides the case directly, because post-Brexit the United Kingdom is no longer a Member State and the succession of a person habitually resident in France is normally governed by French law anyway. It matters in one configuration: a British parent who kept English law applicable by will, died habitually resident outside France, and left French property while English law — which knows no forced share — governs. In that configuration the levy can restore the children’s French reserve out of the French assets. If your file matches that pattern, say so at the first meeting and bring the will, because the calculation changes completely.
Practically, the first check is therefore arithmetic, not emotional. Ask the notaire for the full statement showing the existing assets, every lifetime gift listed with its date, and the resulting reserve and disposable portion. Count the children who accept the succession, including children who renounced but are represented by their own offspring or who must account for a gift, since the statute counts them in defined cases. Compare the gifts your sibling received against the disposable portion. If the gifts fit inside it, there is nothing to challenge on that front; if they overflow it, the excess is vulnerable to the reduction action described in Part II. Do not sign any partage, the final partition deed, while this check is outstanding, because signing without reservation can later be read as acceptance of figures you had not verified.
Keep every document the calculation rests on: the death certificate, the will if there is one, each acte de donation (deed of gift), bank statements showing transfers in the years before death, life-insurance paperwork — the assurance-vie contracts that frequently carry large sums outside the estate — and any private IOUs or acknowledgements between family members. Heirs who arrive with a complete file get answers months faster than heirs who ask the notaire to reconstruct everything from scratch. And if a sibling received money through informal transfers rather than a notarial deed, gather the proof now: those sums still count, as the next section shows, whether or not a deed exists.
B. How British heirs add lifetime gifts back into the estate with fictional joinder and hotchpot
The central calculation device is the réunion fictive, the fictional joinder. The estate is not what remains on the death day; it is what remains plus everything given away during life, notionally brought back for counting purposes. Article 922 of the Civil Code states the method: La réduction se détermine en formant une masse de tous les biens existant au décès du donateur ou testateur. The same article continues that property disposed of by lifetime gift is fictitiously reunited with that mass, according to its condition at the time of the gift and its value at the opening of the succession, after deducting the debts and charges burdening it, with adjustments where the property was sold on or replaced by other property through subrogation. In practice this means the Sarlat house given to your brother five years ago re-enters the arithmetic at its value on the death day, in the condition it was in when given, minus any charges. Gifts that looked modest when made can therefore breach the disposable portion years later simply because French property values rose — the classic Dordogne and Paris story of the last decade.
The Court of Cassation confirmed how this reconstruction works even in the most tangled files. In a judgment of 10 June 2026 on a universal legacy challenged by a forced heir, the First Civil Chamber recalled first that Aux termes de l’article 922 du code civil, 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, après qu’en ont été déduites les dettes ou les charges les grevant. It then drew the consequence that structures the whole remedy: Il résulte des articles 924 et suivants du code civil qu’en principe, le legs est réductible en valeur et non en nature, de sorte qu’il n’existe aucune indivision entre le légataire universel et l’héritier réservataire. A universal legatee — the person named in the will to take everything — does not end up co-owning each asset with the cheated child; the legatee owes the child a money indemnity for the excess. That principle, reduction in value rather than in kind, governs gifts to siblings as well through Article 924: Lorsque la libéralité excède la quotité disponible, le gratifié, successible ou non successible, doit indemniser les héritiers réservataires à concurrence de la portion excessive de la libéralité, quel que soit cet excédent. Whoever received too much, heir or stranger, must compensate the forced heirs for the excess, however large. For a British heir this is good news procedurally: you do not need the court to unwind a ten-year-old gift deed and force a sale of your brother’s house; you need a quantified indemnity, which can be set off against the partition shares.
Alongside fictional joinder runs a second, quieter mechanism: the rapport, hotchpot, the duty of an heir to account to the co-heirs for what was received. Article 843 provides: Tout héritier, même ayant accepté à concurrence de l’actif, venant à une succession, doit rapporter à ses cohéritiers tout ce qu’il a reçu du défunt, par donations entre vifs, directement ou indirectement ; il ne peut retenir les dons à lui faits par le défunt, à moins qu’ils ne lui aient été faits expressément hors part successorale. Gifts to an heir are therefore presumed to be advances on that heir’s share — en avancement de part successorale — unless the donor expressly stated they were made outside the share, hors part successorale or par préciput. Bequests in a will work the other way round: legacies to an heir are presumed made outside the share unless the testator expressed the contrary wish. The distinction decides whether your brother’s gift is first credited against his own entitlement, which often closes the case without any reduction action, or whether it is charged directly against the disposable portion. Read the gift deed’s wording with care; the presence or absence of the words hors part is frequently the whole dispute.
Even an heir who walks away can remain inside the arithmetic. Article 845 states that L’héritier qui renonce à la succession peut cependant retenir le don entre vifs ou réclamer le legs à lui fait jusqu’à concurrence de la portion disponible à moins que le disposant ait expressément exigé le rapport en cas de renonciation. A renouncing heir may keep lifetime gifts and claim legacies up to the disposable portion, unless the donor expressly required hotchpot even on renunciation. Where the accounted value exceeds what that heir would have received in the partition, the renouncing heir compensates the accepting heirs for the surplus. For British families this answers a recurring tactical question — should the disappointed child renounce in protest? Renunciation does not punish the favoured sibling; the gift stays with its recipient up to the disposable portion, and the renouncing child loses standing to demand reduction. Never renounce to express displeasure without advice; renunciation is a strategy for creditors and tax, not for anger.
II. When the Figures Look Wrong: Challenging the Distribution, Punishing Concealment and Paying Only the Right Tax
A. How British heirs challenge excessive gifts, prove concealment and meet the time limits
The weapon that cuts excessive gifts down is the action en réduction, the action for reduction. Standing is narrow and that narrowness protects you: La réduction des dispositions entre vifs ne pourra être demandée que par ceux au profit desquels la loi fait la réserve, par leurs héritiers ou ayants cause : les donataires, les légataires, ni les créanciers du défunt ne pourront demander cette réduction, ni en profiter. Only the forced heirs, their heirs and assigns can demand reduction of lifetime gifts; recipients, legatees and the deceased’s creditors cannot demand it or benefit from it. The favoured sibling cannot pre-emptively ask the court to bless the gift, and the deceased’s creditors cannot piggyback on your action.
Time limits are strict, and this is the section of the article that must be read with a calendar in hand. The statute provides: Le délai de prescription de l’action en réduction est fixé à cinq ans à compter de l’ouverture de la succession, ou à deux ans à compter du jour où les héritiers ont eu connaissance de l’atteinte portée à leur réserve, sans jamais pouvoir excéder dix ans à compter du décès. The Court of Cassation clarified the articulation of these periods on 7 February 2024: pour être recevable, l’action en réduction doit être intentée dans les cinq ans à compter du décès ou, au-delà, jusqu’à dix ans après le décès à condition d’être exercée dans les deux ans qui ont suivi la découverte de l’atteinte à la réserve. In practice: sue within five years of the death and the question of knowledge does not arise; discover the excessive gift later, and you have two years from discovery, capped at ten years from death in all cases. A British heir who learns in year seven, while clearing a parent’s papers, that a large transfer funded a sibling’s London flat deposit can still act — but must move within two years and before the tenth anniversary. Older successions follow transitional rules that the courts apply file by file; do not assume the current five-year scheme covers a death from the 1990s without checking which prescription regime the case law assigns to it.
The statute also places a duty on the settlement process itself: where the notaire, when settling the succession, finds that a forced heir’s rights may be impaired by the deceased’s gifts, the notaire informs each known heir concerned, individually and where appropriate before any partition, of the right to demand reduction of gifts exceeding the disposable portion. That warning, in the same Article 921 linked above, is your procedural ally. If you never received it, say so in writing and ask for the complete gift schedule; if you did receive it, treat it as the starting gun for the time limits rather than as a mere information letter.
Concealment is punished far more severely than excess. The recel successoral — hiding estate assets or hiding the existence of a co-heir — triggers Article 778: Sans préjudice de dommages et intérêts, l’héritier qui a recelé des biens ou des droits d’une succession ou dissimulé l’existence d’un cohéritier est réputé accepter purement et simplement la succession, nonobstant toute renonciation ou acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net, sans pouvoir prétendre à aucune part dans les biens ou les droits détournés ou recelés. The concealing heir is deemed to accept the succession outright, loses any share in the diverted assets, must account for or suffer reduction of any concealed gift without taking any part in it, and must return all fruits and income from the concealed property enjoyed since the opening of the succession. Hiding a bank account, failing to declare a donation, presenting a forged acknowledgement of debt to shrink the mass, or quietly collecting rents on an estate property all fall within this definition when done deliberately. French courts require proof of deliberate intent — a deliberate act aimed at breaking equality between heirs — so mere omission or administrative error is not enough; text messages discussing the hidden account, a double set of rental receipts, or a transfer the day after death are the kind of material that proves it.
The procedure follows a predictable ladder. First, a formal demand letter, the mise en demeure, asking the sibling and the notaire for disclosure and a corrected statement within a stated deadline. Second, if the figures do not move, a writ — the assignation — before the tribunal judiciaire (the ordinary civil court) of the place where the succession opened, seeking opening of account, liquidation and partition operations together with hotchpot, reduction and the concealment penalty. The court routinely appoints a notaire commis to conduct the operations and, where valuation is disputed, an expert to value the gifted property at the death-day value. Life-insurance contracts deserve a separate line in your claim: sums paid as disguised gifts can be brought back into the reduction arithmetic, a point regularly litigated where a parent funded a sibling’s policy. Keep the claim structured — hotchpot first, reduction second, concealment third — because each has different proof and different consequences, and courts dismiss bundles that mix them without distinguishing.
B. How British heirs settle French inheritance tax and handle the Paris practicalities without overpaying
Civil shares and tax are two different battles, and winning the first does not exempt you from the second. The French inheritance tax net is cast by Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code. Where the deceased was fiscally domiciled in France, the statute taxes movable and immovable property in France and abroad; where the deceased was not domiciled in France, it taxes the French-situs property: Les biens meubles et immeubles, que ces derniers soient possédés directement ou indirectement, situés en France, et notamment les fonds publics français, parts d’intérêts, biens ou droits composant un trust défini à l’article 792-0 bis et produits qui y sont capitalisés, créances et valeurs mobilières françaises, lorsque le donateur ou le défunt n’a pas son domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article précité. The same article extends the net to heirs domiciled in France who have been so domiciled for at least six of the ten years before receiving the property. For a British heir this produces three common configurations: parent domiciled in France with worldwide assets caught; parent back in England with only the French house caught, including through a company or a trust holding it indirectly; and heir long settled in France caught on worldwide receipts. Identify your configuration before any return is filed, because each points to a different taxable base and a different set of allowances.
The practical consequence is that the reduction indemnity and the tax return must be prepared together. An indemnity received to compensate a breached reserve is part of the succession economics, and the valuation retained for the civil calculation — death-day value in gift-day condition — feeds the discussion with the tax administration, whose valuation rules follow their own logic. Where a sibling keeps the gifted house and pays you an indemnity, check who bears the existing mortgage, who collected the rents since death, and who pays the taxe foncière in the meantime; the concealment penalty above returns rents and fruits to the mass, but ordinary occupation and charges must be settled expressly in the partition deed rather than left to a family understanding. British families frequently leave the house occupied rent-free by one sibling during the dispute and discover at partition that nobody accounted for two years of occupation value. Put it in writing early.
For heirs based in Paris and the Île-de-France, three local points deserve attention. First, jurisdiction: where the deceased was domiciled in the Paris region, the succession opens there and disputes go to the Paris judicial court, whose family and property chambers handle a heavy volume of international files; allow realistic timetables for expert valuations of Paris property, where the gap between the parties’ valuations routinely exceeds ten per cent. Second, the notarial market: Paris offices routinely act for Anglo-French families and will prepare bilingual statements, but always ask for the French originals of every deed, because only the French text governs before the court. Third, paperwork: English documents — death certificates, grants of probate, powers of attorney — must be translated by a sworn translator, a traducteur assermenté, and, depending on the issuing authority, apostilled; start this work alongside the first demand letter rather than on the eve of a hearing. None of these steps replaces the legal analysis, but files that arrive translated, complete and quantified settle faster, whether by negotiated partage amiable or by judgment.
Throughout, keep the two registers of the file separate. The civil register asks who gets what: reserve, joinder, hotchpot, reduction, concealment. The tax register asks what is declared and where: French-situs assets, worldwide assets where domicile triggers it, debts deductible under each register’s own rules. A victory that doubles your civil share while doubling your taxable base through careless valuations is only half a victory. Work both registers with the same figures, challenge the notaire‘s statement in writing before partition, calendar the five-year, two-year and ten-year limits from the day of death and the day of discovery, and gather the bank and insurance proof that turns suspicion of concealment into a sanction.
Conclusion
A British heir facing a French succession is not powerless before a distribution that feels wrong. The forced share guarantees children a fixed portion — one half, two thirds or three quarters collectively depending on their number — measured on an estate rebuilt with lifetime gifts at death-day values. Gifts that overflow the disposable portion are cut back by the reduction action, brought within five years of death or within two years of discovery up to ten years. An heir who hid assets or a co-heir loses all share in what was hidden and returns its income. And the tax net follows domicile and situs under its own rules, so the civil and fiscal calculations must advance together. Check the statement, demand the gift schedule, calendar the limits, prove what was hidden, and challenge in the correct court before signing any partition. The arithmetic of French succession law is unforgiving, but it protects the child who verifies it.