You own a house in France, you live between London and the Dordogne, and your will was drawn up by your English solicitor exactly the way you wanted: the French house goes to your spouse, or to one child, or to a new partner, and everyone else is left out. After Brexit, one question keeps British owners awake at night: will a French notaire (the public officer who alone can settle a French estate) actually apply that English will to the French house, or will French forced heirship rules tear it apart? And if you are the child or the spouse who has been cut out, how do you challenge the will, and within what limits? This guide answers both questions from the French side of the Channel. It explains which law governs your French house when you die resident in France or resident in England, how a choice of English law written into your will works and where it stops, what your surviving spouse keeps whatever the will says, what French inheritance tax each heir pays, and the practical steps that make a will stand up or bring it down before the French courts.

I. Will your English will really govern your French house after Brexit?

A. Your habitual residence decides the applicable law unless you choose English law in your will

Since 17 August 2015, one European text governs which law applies to a cross-border succession in France: Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of 4 July 2012. Brexit did not remove it from the French legal landscape. The United Kingdom never opted into the Regulation, but that only means British courts do not apply it; French courts and French notaires apply it to every succession they handle, including the succession of a British national who leaves a house in France. For a British reader, the starting point is therefore a French and European one, not the Wills Act 1837.

The default rule is habitual residence. Article 21(1) of the Regulation provides: “Sauf disposition contraire du présent règlement, la loi applicable à l’ensemble d’une succession est celle de l’État dans lequel le défunt avait sa résidence habituelle au moment de son décès.” (source: Regulation 650/2012, Art. 21) In plain terms, if you retired to France, live there year-round, pay your taxes there and see your doctor there, French succession law will normally govern your whole estate, including the French house and even assets left in England, unless you have made a valid choice of another law. Habitual residence (résidence habituelle) is a question of fact: where your life is actually centred at the date of death, not the address printed on your driving licence. Second-home owners who spend most of the year in Britain and a few months in France are usually still habitually resident in England, while full-time expatriates in France are habitually resident in France. Between those two poles lies a grey zone where evidence matters enormously: utility bills, tax returns, medical registration, club memberships and the testimony of neighbours can all decide which law applies to a house worth several hundred thousand euros.

The escape route from the default rule is the professio juris, the choice of law written into the will itself. Article 22(1) of the Regulation states: “Une personne peut choisir comme loi régissant l’ensemble de sa succession la loi de l’État dont elle possède la nationalité au moment où elle fait ce choix ou au moment de son décès.” (source: Regulation 650/2012, Art. 22) A British national can therefore choose English law to govern the succession as a whole, French house included. The Regulation adds a strict condition of form in Article 22(2): “Le choix est formulé de manière expresse dans une déclaration revêtant la forme d’une disposition à cause de mort ou résulte des termes d’une telle disposition.” (source: Regulation 650/2012, Art. 22) A vague statement that you “feel English” changes nothing; an express clause such as I choose the law of England and Wales to govern my succession inserted in a valid will does. Because the choice can be made by reference to nationality held either when the clause is signed or at death, a British owner who later takes French nationality keeps a usable choice either way, and a dual national can pick whichever of his national laws suits the family best.

Jurisdiction follows a parallel logic, and a 2020 decision of the French Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation, the supreme court for civil matters) shows how seriously French courts take it, in a case that itself involved a widow living in London. In its judgment of 18 November 2020, First Civil Chamber, appeal No Y 19-15.438, the Court had to decide whether French courts could hear a dispute over the succession of a French national who died in France while his widow lived in London, with children from a first marriage contesting jurisdiction. The Court referred a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union, asking: “Les dispositions de l’article 10, point 1a), du règlement (UE) n° 650/2012 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 4 juillet 2012, relatif à la compétence, la loi applicable, la reconnaissance et l’exécution des décisions, et l’acceptation et l’exécution des actes authentiques en matière de successions et à la création d’un certificat successoral européen doivent-elles être interprétées en ce sens que, lorsque la résidence habituelle du défunt au moment du décès n’est pas située dans un Etat membre, la juridiction d’un Etat membre dans lequel la résidence habituelle du défunt n’était pas fixée mais qui constate que celui-ci avait la nationalité de cet Etat et y possédait des biens doit, d’office, relever sa compétence subsidiaire prévue par ce texte?” (source: Cass. 1re civ., 18 Nov. 2020, No 19-15.438) The lesson for British families is direct: where the deceased was not habitually resident in any Member State, Article 10 gives the courts of the Member State of his nationality, where estate assets lie, a subsidiary jurisdiction over the whole succession, and the French supreme court even asked whether that court must raise its own jurisdiction of its own motion. A British owner who retires back to England but keeps the French house may therefore still find the French courts competent for the succession, and a choice of English law clause decides the applicable law without necessarily displacing the French forum. Jurisdiction and applicable law must be reasoned about separately, and both should be addressed in the will and the file.

Three practical consequences follow for your drafting. First, if you live in France and want English law to apply, insert an express choice-of-law clause now; silence means French law. Second, if you live in England and own only a French holiday home, English law will often apply by default through your English habitual residence, but an express clause removes all argument and helps the French notaire accept the English will without a fight. Third, review the clause after every major life event: a move across the Channel, a new marriage, a new child or a naturalisation can shift your habitual residence or your nationality and silently undo your planning. The clause costs one sentence; the dispute it prevents can cost years.

B. Choosing English law cannot strip your children of the French forced-share safety net

Here comes the part most English solicitors miss, and the part that generates most litigation: under French law, your children are héritiers réservataires, forced heirs whom you cannot fully disinherit. Article 912 of the Civil Code (Code civil) defines the mechanism: “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.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 912) The quotité disponible, the freely disposable share, is simply the rest: “La quotité disponible est la part des biens et droits successoraux qui n’est pas réservée par la loi et dont le défunt a pu disposer librement par des libéralités.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 912) Article 913 fixes the fractions with arithmetic brutality: “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.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 913) One child means half the estate is locked for that child; two children lock two thirds; three or more lock three quarters. A will that gives everything to the surviving spouse or to one favoured child, leaving the others with nothing, is not void as a whole, but the short-changed children can bring an action en réduction, a claim to reduce the excessive gifts, until their forced share is restored, if necessary by taking the French house itself or its value back.

For decades, wealthy testators tried to escape the forced share by making a foreign law apply to the succession. The French Parliament answered on 24 August 2021 with a compensatory levy mechanism now codified inside Article 913 itself. When the deceased or at least one of the children is, at the date of death, a national of a European Union Member State or habitually resident there, and the foreign law applicable to the succession offers children no forced-share protection at all, the article provides that “chaque enfant ou ses héritiers ou ses ayants cause peuvent effectuer un prélèvement compensatoire sur les biens existants situés en France au jour du décès, de façon à être rétablis dans les droits réservataires que leur octroie la loi française, dans la limite de ceux-ci.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 913) In other words, even if your English-law clause is perfectly valid and English law governs the succession, each child can still take a compensatory levy on the assets lying in France, including the French house, up to the amount of the French forced share. The mechanism only plays where the foreign law has no forced-share device of its own and where there is an EU link through nationality or habitual residence, but a British family settled in France, or children living in France, will frequently meet that condition. Choosing English law therefore buys unity of the succession and the familiar English administration, but it does not buy the freedom to disinherit children so far as French-situated property is concerned.

What does that mean in real cases? Take a British couple retired near Bergerac with two children living in England. The husband’s English will leaves the French house entirely to his wife. If French law applies by default, each child is entitled to one third of the estate, and the gift to the wife is reducible. If the will contains a valid choice of English law, English law governs, yet each child can still levy compensation on the French house up to one third each, because English law gives them no forced share and the family has its habitual residence in France. Either way the widow keeps at most the disposable third plus her own matrimonial rights, and she may have to pay the children for the rest or sell the house. Take now a childless British owner whose will leaves the Dordogne cottage to a friend: with no children there is no forced heir, the whole estate is freely disposable, and the choice of English law works at full strength. The number of children is therefore the single most important fact in the file, and any honest advice starts by counting them.

If you are the disinherited child, the path is an action en réduction before the French court of the place where the succession opened or where the French property lies, supported by a valuation of the whole estate, a computation of the masse de calcul (the fictional mass of all gifts brought back into account) and proof of the foreign law’s content through a certificat de coutume (a certificate of foreign law drawn up by a specialist lawyer). If you are defending the will, the answers are to verify the validity of the choice-of-law clause, to check whether the foreign law truly lacks any protective device, to dispute valuations and the composition of the mass, and to negotiate a payment in money rather than a forced sale of the house. Both sides need the estate accounts early, and both sides should instruct before positions harden, because once the house is sold to a third party the dispute becomes a fight about money with far less leverage.

II. How to protect your spouse and challenge or defend a will over a French house

A. What your surviving spouse keeps even if the will says otherwise

British testators constantly overestimate what a will can take away from a surviving husband or wife. French law surrounds the surviving spouse (conjoint survivant, meaning the married husband or wife, not an unmarried partner) with a stack of protections that operate before, beside and sometimes against the will.

First, the spouse is an heir in his or her own right. Article 757 of the Civil Code provides: “Si l’époux prédécédé laisse des enfants ou descendants, le conjoint survivant recueille, à son choix, l’usufruit de la totalité des biens existants ou la propriété du quart des biens lorsque tous les enfants sont issus des deux époux et la propriété du quart en présence d’un ou plusieurs enfants qui ne sont pas issus des deux époux.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 757) The usufruit (life interest, the right to use the property and take its income without owning it) over the whole estate, or outright ownership (pleine propriété) of one quarter: that is the legal minimum, and the choice belongs to the survivor, not to the will. In blended families, where at least one child is not the child of both spouses, only the quarter in ownership is available, which is exactly the situation of many second marriages among British owners in France. A will can improve the spouse’s lot, by giving the maximum disposable share on top, but it cannot push the spouse below this floor, and a surviving spouse who receives less can demand to be topped up.

Second, the spouse who actually lived in the home keeps a roof over his or her head for a year, free of charge, whatever the will says. Article 763 of the Civil Code states: “Si, à l’époque du décès, le conjoint successible occupe effectivement, à titre d’habitation principale, un logement appartenant aux époux ou dépendant totalement de la succession, il a de plein droit, pendant une année, la jouissance gratuite de ce logement, ainsi que du mobilier, compris dans la succession, qui le garnit.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 763) The same article adds two sentences that litigators quote in every case: “Les droits prévus au présent article sont réputés effets directs du mariage et non droits successoraux. Le présent article est d’ordre public.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 763) Because the one-year right is a direct effect of the marriage and a matter of public policy (ordre public), no will, no choice of English law and no family arrangement can remove it. Rents or occupation payments for that year are even reimbursed by the estate. For the British widow who suddenly finds her stepchildren demanding she leave the Provençal villa, this one-year shield is the first emergency defence, and it applies automatically.

Third, beyond that year, the surviving spouse holds a lifelong right to live in the home and use its furniture. Article 764 provides: “Sauf volonté contraire du défunt exprimée dans les conditions de l’article 971 , le conjoint successible qui occupait effectivement, à l’époque du décès, à titre d’habitation principale, un logement appartenant aux époux ou dépendant totalement de la succession, a sur ce logement, jusqu’à son décès, un droit d’habitation et un droit d’usage sur le mobilier, compris dans la succession, le garnissant.” This droit viager au logement (lifelong right to live in the home) can only be removed by the deceased in the strict formal conditions of Article 971, meaning a notarised will (testament authentique, dictated to two notaries or one notary with two witnesses), never by a simple signed letter. An English will that leaves the French house to the children and says nothing about the spouse does not extinguish this right; only a deprivation expressed in notarised form does, and even then the deprivation leaves untouched “les droits d’usufruit que le conjoint recueille en vertu de la loi ou d’une libéralité, qui continuent à obéir à leurs règles propres.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 764)

The trap, confirmed by the Court of Cassation, is that the lifelong right must be claimed within a year, and simply staying put is not enough. On 2 March 2022, First Civil Chamber, appeal No N 20-16.674, the Court quashed a decision that had granted the lifelong right to a widow merely because she had stayed in the house, holding, after citing Articles 764 and 765-1 of the Civil Code, “Selon ces textes, le conjoint survivant dispose d’un an à partir du décès pour manifester sa volonté de bénéficier de son droit viager au logement.” (source: Cass. 1re civ., 2 Mar. 2022, No 20-16.674) It added the sentence every practitioner should pin to the file: “Si cette manifestation de volonté peut être tacite, elle ne peut résulter du seul maintien dans les lieux.” (source: Cass. 1re civ., 2 Mar. 2022, No 20-16.674) A tacit expression of intent is accepted, but staying in the rooms alone is not one. The surviving spouse, or the advising lawyer, must therefore send an express written claim to the heirs or the notaire within twelve months of the death, ideally by recorded letter drafted by counsel, and keep the proof. Miss the year, and the lifelong right is lost, even though the one-year free occupation under Article 763 was automatic.

Fourth, the tax system treats the surviving spouse gently. Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code (Code général des impôts) states: “Sont exonérés de droits de mutation par décès le conjoint survivant et le partenaire lié au défunt par un pacte civil de solidarité.” (source: Tax Code, Art. 796-0 bis) A married survivor and a partner in a PACS (the French registered civil partnership) pay no French succession tax at all on what they inherit. Children, by contrast, each enjoy an allowance (abattement) of 100,000 euros under Article 779: “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.” (source: Tax Code, Art. 779) Above the allowance, Article 777 applies the sliding scale for direct-line heirs from 5% on the first slice (“N’excédant pas 8 072 € 5”) (source: Tax Code, Art. 777) up to 45% beyond 1,805,677 euros (“Au-delà de 1 805 677 € 45”) (source: Tax Code, Art. 777). Siblings, nephews and unrelated beneficiaries face far harsher rates, up to 60% for non-relatives. Routing the French house to the spouse is therefore usually tax-free, while routing it to children of a high-value estate needs a computation, and leaving it to a friend or unmarried partner can trigger a crushing bill. Any will that names the wrong beneficiary for tax purposes can cost the family tens of thousands of euros that a one-hour consultation would have saved.

B. How to make your will stand up in France, or bring it down before the French courts

Start with form, because most will contests in France attack form first. French law accepts three shapes of will, and the simplest is the handwritten one. Article 970 of the Civil Code provides: “Le testament olographe ne sera point valable s’il n’est écrit en entier, daté et signé de la main du testateur : il n’est assujetti à aucune autre forme.” (source: Civil Code, Art. 970) Entirely handwritten, precisely dated, signed: those three conditions, and only those, make a valid testament olographe (handwritten will). The official service-public.fr guide confirms the practice in everyday language: the will must be written entirely by hand, never typed on a computer even in part, precisely dated with the day, month and year, and signed, as the official service-public.fr wills guide confirms, and it adds confirmation for British testators that a testator may draw up the will in a foreign language (service-public.fr), which covers wills written in English (source: service-public.fr, wills guide) Your English will, written in English, is not invalid in France for being in English. The danger lies elsewhere: a will typed on a computer and merely signed is void as a holographic will; an undated or vaguely dated will is void; and a joint will signed by both spouses together is forbidden, since each spouse must make a separate will.

Compare that with the English side. The British government’s own guidance reminds testators that a will must be formally witnessed and signed to be legally valid (gov.uk) (source: gov.uk, make a will), and that distinct rules apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland. An English will signed before two independent witnesses is therefore valid in England, and a French notaire faced with such a will will normally examine its validity under the law governing the succession, increasingly with the help of a certificat de coutume on English law. The safest file contains both: a properly witnessed English will carrying the express choice-of-law clause, and, where the French house is the main asset, a mirrored French handwritten or notarised will dealing with the French property in consistent terms. Two wills must never contradict each other; each should state that it revokes prior wills only so far as they concern assets in the other country, or better, both should be drafted together by the English solicitor and the French notaire in a coordinated exercise. Contradictory wills are a litigation factory.

Registration and safekeeping decide whether the will is found and followed. In France, a notaire can keep the will and register it with the central wills register, the fichier central des dispositions de dernières volontés (FCDDV), so that every notaire settling the estate learns of its existence; service-public.fr explains that registration exists precisely to make the will known at death. Tell your executors and your family where the originals are, deposit a copy with the French notaire who holds the title deeds (titre de propriété) of the house, and keep the choice-of-law clause identical in every copy. An English will sleeping in a drawer in Kent, unknown to the French notaire, will surface months late, after the children have already taken positions, and delay is the enemy of every succession.

When death occurs, the French machinery starts with the notaire: verification of the wills through the FCDDV, establishment of the family record (acte de notoriété, the deed proving who the heirs are), valuation of the French house by a local agent with a written estimate, computation of the forced shares and the available share, and payment or guarantee of the succession tax within six months of death. Where English assets are involved, the English grant of probate and the French settlement must be coordinated, and the European Certificate of Succession (certificat successoral européen, the EU document proving heirship across Member States) can help move bank funds and register the transfer, even though the United Kingdom does not issue or directly receive it. Heirs who suspect concealment can demand a full inventory (inventaire) of the estate, and the surviving spouse should immediately send the express claim for the lifelong housing right described above.

Contesting the will follows a clear order of battle. Attack validity first: lack of handwriting, date or signature under Article 970; lack of witnesses under English law if that law governs form; lack of mental capacity (insanité d’esprit); undue influence or fraud, which require solid evidence such as medical records and contemporaneous correspondence. Attack the choice-of-law clause second: was it express, in a valid testamentary disposition, choosing a nationality actually held? Then bring the forced-share claim: compute the fictional mass, value the French house at the date of death with an expert if needed, and demand reduction of excessive gifts or the compensatory levy on the French assets. Mirror defences apply in reverse: prove the handwritten will is entirely in the testator’s hand with dated drafts and banking of the signature; prove capacity with the GP’s letter from the same period; defend valuations; and always offer payment of the forced share in money to keep the house. Courts can order expert valuations, and the losing party typically bears heavy costs, so a realistic settlement conference before the writ is often the best advocacy of all.

For owners in Paris and the Île-de-France, add local specifics to the file: the Paris notaire holding the deeds, the notarial databases (BIEN, PERVAL) for defensible Paris valuations, the Paris judicial court (tribunal judiciaire de Paris) for forced-share and housing-right claims over Paris flats, and the twelve-month housing-right deadline running from death regardless of where in France the property lies. High Paris values push children’s shares above the 100,000 euro allowance fast, so the Article 777 scale must be computed before any promise is made to keep the apartment undivided. A short Paris section in the will file, with the flat’s address, the notaire’s details and the valuation evidence, regularly saves months.

Conclusion

Your English will can govern your French house after Brexit, but only if it says so expressly, only if its form survives French scrutiny, and only within the walls French law refuses to move: the children’s forced share with its compensatory levy on French assets, the spouse’s minimum inheritance, the one-year free occupation that no clause can remove, and the lifelong housing right that must be claimed within twelve months. The winning method is simple to state and demanding to execute: an express choice-of-law clause for English law, a will valid both where it was signed and where the house stands, registration with the French notaire, an immediate written claim for the spouse’s housing right, and an early tax computation before anyone promises anything. Whether you are drafting to protect a spouse, or challenging a will that cut you out, the same documents decide the outcome: the wills, the valuations, the family record and the calendar. Get those four right, and the French house goes where you intend; get any one wrong, and the statute books will decide for you.

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Article 912 du Code civil (réserve héréditaire) Article 913 du Code civil (quotité disponible et prélèvement compensatoire) Article 757 du Code civil (droits du conjoint survivant) Article 763 du Code civil (jouissance gratuite d’un an) Article 764 du Code civil (droit viager au logement) Article 970 du Code civil (testament olographe) Article 777 du Code général des impôts (tarifs en ligne directe) Article 779 du Code général des impôts (abattement de 100 000 €) Article 796-0 bis du Code général des impôts (exonération du conjoint survivant) Cass. 1re civ., 18 nov. 2020, n° 19-15.438 Cass. 1re civ., 2 mars 2022, n° 20-16.674 Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 service-public.fr: making a will gov.uk: make a will