Your father has died in Manchester, and among the estate papers you find the deeds of a stone house in the Dordogne that he bought twenty years ago. You live in Britain, you are not moving to France, and the family decision is to sell. From London this looks like one transaction; from the French side it is a chain of four, and the chain breaks at its weakest link. First you must prove, from abroad, that you are the heir, under whichever law governs the succession. Then you must settle the French death duties on the house and file the succession return inside the statutory period. Then every person with rights over the house must agree to the sale, including a surviving spouse with a life interest, a sibling who wants to keep the house, and any child whose protected minimum share was infringed by the will, because a buyer will not pay for a title the family can later attack. Only then comes the sale itself, where a British-resident seller is taxed in France on the gain and must appoint a French tax representative, the représentant fiscal, before the notaire, the public officer who handles conveyancing and successions, releases the price. Since Brexit, British heirs sit outside the European exemption from that representative, so the obligation is systematic. This article gives the complete method in order: proving heirship from the United Kingdom, clearing the title with co-heirs and protected heirs, paying each tax once and only once under the treaties, and challenging every block and every excessive bill within the time limits. Every decisive statement below is tied to the exact statutory text or court decision quoted beside it.

I. How Does a British Heir Living in the UK Take Title to the French House and Make It Saleable?

A. How do you prove heirship from Britain when the deceased lived in the UK?

The first question is which law governs the succession, because it decides who the heirs are and what the English will can do. Since 17 August 2015 the European Succession Regulation, Regulation (EU) No 650/2012, applies in France as a universal instrument, so it covers British deceased even after Brexit. The default is the last habitual residence: a father who lived his daily life in Manchester dies under English law by default, while a father retired full-time to the Dordogne dies under French law by default. A British national can displace the default by electing the national law. Article 22 of the Regulation allows a British national to elect the law of the State of his nationality, held when the election is made or at death, to govern the whole succession, provided the election is made expressly in a declaration in the form of a disposition of property upon death or is shown by the terms of such a disposition. Read the English will first, looking for an express election of English law, and mirror that clause into the French file from the first meeting with the notaire. Where no valid election exists and the deceased lived in France, French succession law governs the whole estate, including the protected minimum shares of the children described below.

Even where English law governs, expect the French side to handle the French house. The Court of Cassation considered the position of estates with no habitual residence in a Member State serious enough to ask Luxembourg for guidance: on 18 November 2020 (appeal no. 19-15.438) it referred the question of how article 10(1)(a) of the Regulation applies “lorsque la résidence habituelle du défunt au moment du décès n’est pas située dans un Etat membre”, the argument being that “les juridictions de l’Etat membre dans lequel sont situés des biens successoraux sont néanmoins compétentes, de manière subsidiaire, pour statuer sur l’ensemble de la succession”. Read the referral at Cour de cassation, decision 5fca277ce35a255d41ca7393. For a British heir this means organising a two-country file without delay: the English grant of probate with a sworn French translation for the English assets and as evidence of the will, and the French succession file with the notaire for the house. French law gives heirs immediate seisin: article 724 of the Civil Code states that “Les héritiers désignés par la loi sont saisis de plein droit des biens, droits et actions du défunt.” But seisin is not proof, and no buyer, bank or tax office will move on your word alone. The proof is the heir-identifying deed, the acte de notoriété: article 730-1 of the Civil Code provides that “La preuve de la qualité d’héritier peut résulter d’un acte de notoriété dressé par un notaire, à la demande d’un ou plusieurs ayants droit.” Send the notaire the death certificate, the family record documents, the English will and grant with translations, and the details of any lifetime gifts, and ask expressly for the deed to record the choice-of-law analysis, because everything downstream, from the allowances to the sale deed, depends on it. Note the boundary of that deed: article 730-2 of the same code warns that “L’affirmation contenue dans l’acte de notoriété n’emporte pas, par elle-même, acceptation de la succession.” Signing the request for the deed does not itself make you accept a possibly indebted estate, which matters where the Dordogne house carries a mortgage, unpaid local taxes or a builder’s lien. The official step-by-step guidance for settling an estate and for accepting or renouncing it is published in English by the French administration, and the French notarial profession publishes an English guide to French probate; both describe the same sequence of death certificate, heirship deed, inventory, return and distribution. The British government’s country guide for citizens connected with France completes the UK side of the paperwork at Living in France, GOV.UK.

Time runs from the death, not from probate. Article 641 of the General Tax Code fixes the filing periods for the succession return: “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.” A father who died in Manchester gives his heirs one year; a father who died at the Dordogne house gives six months. Late filing draws interest and penalties that compound monthly, so instruct the notaire early even while the English probate is still pending, and pay the death duties on account if the valuation is disputed, because paying preserves the right to argue while stopping the penalties. If you hesitate between accepting and renouncing, remember that heirs have a reflection period and that acceptance can be limited to the net assets, the acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net, which caps liability for the deceased’s debts at the value received: never sign an unqualified acceptance at the bank counter in the first weeks.

B. How do you get every owner to agree to the sale, including the surviving spouse and protected heirs?

Between the death and the sale, the heirs own the house together in indivision, the default co-ownership without legal personality, and this regime has one golden rule and one escape. The golden rule is that nobody can be forced to stay: article 815 of the Civil Code provides that “Nul ne peut être contraint à demeurer dans l’indivision et le partage peut toujours être provoqué, à moins qu’il n’y ait été sursis par jugement ou convention.” A British heir who wants to sell can always force a division, and a sibling who wants to keep the house cannot veto the exit, only negotiate its terms. Expect a sibling living in the house to plead for time to protect the value of the property, and answer with a valuation showing that a prepared sale now beats a forced auction later. For the sale itself, unanimity is the price of a clean title: article 815-3 of the Civil Code provides that “le consentement de tous les indivisaires est requis pour effectuer tout acte qui ne ressortit pas à l’exploitation normale des biens indivis et pour effectuer tout acte de disposition”. Selling the Dordogne house is a disposal, so every co-heir must consent, and a sale signed by three siblings out of four is not a bargain for the buyer, it is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Where one heir refuses, the remedy is a court-ordered division, the partage judiciaire, before the judicial court, the tribunal judiciaire, of the place where the house sits, ending either in allocation of the house to one heir against compensation, the soulte, or in public auction, the licitation, whose price the market, not the family, sets. File with a valuation, a documented history of sale mandates showing the refusal, and a draft division plan, because courts allocate where allocation is possible and auction only where it is not.

Two people complicate unanimity in British families: the surviving spouse and the disinherited child. Where the parents split ownership during their lifetime between a life interest and the bare title, the usufruit, the right to use the property and take its income, and the nue-propriété, the bare ownership without current enjoyment, the surviving mother votes on the income while the children vote on the capital: article 1844 of the Civil Code provides that “Si une part est grevée d’un usufruit, le nu-propriétaire et l’usufruitier ont le droit de participer aux décisions collectives”, with the vote belonging to the bare owner except on allocation of profits, reserved to the life tenant. Selling the full ownership therefore needs both generations, and neither can sell the other’s right alone. The courts protect the life tenant’s voice firmly: the Court of Cassation held on 16 February 2022 (appeal no. 20-15.164) that “Il résulte de la combinaison de ces textes que l’usufruitier de parts sociales ne peut se voir reconnaître la qualité d’associé, qui n’appartient qu’au nu-propriétaire, mais qu’il doit pouvoir provoquer une délibération des associés sur une question susceptible d’avoir une incidence directe sur son droit de jouissance.” Read the full ruling at Cour de cassation, decision 620ca2d5c61f23729bcf61df. And on 11 July 2024 (appeal no. 23-10.013) it struck down clauses gagging the life tenant: “Si les statuts peuvent réserver le droit de vote aux associés sur les questions autres que celles relatives à l’affectation des bénéfices (Com., 31 mars 2004, pourvoi n° 03-16.694, Bull. civ. IV, n° 70), ils ne peuvent, en revanche, priver l’usufruitier de parts sociales du droit de contester une délibération collective susceptible d’avoir une incidence directe sur son droit de jouissance.” Read the full ruling at Cour de cassation, decision 668f75b39b65e642c58782f8. Applied to the house, a surviving spouse with a life interest over the property cannot be bypassed: either she joins the sale and the price is split between life interest and bare title on the statutory scale below, or the sale cannot convey vacant full ownership and the price collapses. Negotiate her written consent early, with rehousing or annuity figures on the table, rather than discovering her veto at the signing appointment.

The disinherited child is the buyer’s nightmare and therefore the seller’s problem. Where French law governs, children enjoy a protected minimum share, the réserve héréditaire, defined by article 912 of the Civil Code as “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.” Article 913 of the same code fixes the arithmetic: gifts and legacies “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.” A father with two children who left the whole Dordogne house to his second wife has exceeded the free third, and each child holds a reduction action, the action en réduction, to claw the excess back, potentially against the buyer if the property has already been sold. Conveyancers know this, which is why a French buyer’s notaire demands proof that every protected heir consents or has been paid off before releasing funds. Since 2021 the safety net reaches even successions governed by a foreign law with no protected-heir mechanism: the same article 913 allows that “lorsque la loi étrangère applicable à la succession ne permet aucun mécanisme réservataire protecteur des enfants, 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.” A child written out of an English-law will can therefore take compensatory value from the French house up to the French protected amount, and no sale is safe until that claim is settled or time-barred. The practical sequence is: quantify every child’s protected share before marketing, secure written waivers or documented payments, disclose the position honestly to the buyer’s notaire, and price the risk into the timetable. Heirs in Paris and Île-de-France follow the same national rules through the Paris judicial court and the Paris notarial offices where the file is handled, so direct each step to the office shown on the summons or the deed.

II. What Tax Does the British Heir Pay on the French House, and How Do You Challenge Blocks and Bills?

A. Death duties first, capital gains second: what are the two bills on the same house?

France taxes the inheritance and then taxes the resale, and the first valuation sets up the second. The death duties attach to the house itself, wherever the deceased lived: article 750 ter of the General Tax Code charges duties on “Les biens meubles et immeubles, que ces derniers soient possédés directement ou indirectement, situés en France”, even where the deceased was not domiciled in France for tax purposes. A father who died in Manchester and owned the Dordogne house directly leaves French taxable property, full stop. The surviving spouse is fully exempt, each child enjoys a personal allowance, the abattement, before the progressive scale, and the 1963 France-UK convention on death duties prevents the same value being fully taxed twice in London and Paris, with the treaty credit claimed on the British side. Where the parents had split the property between life interest and bare title, the duties follow the statutory scale: article 669 of the General Tax Code states that “Pour la liquidation des droits d’enregistrement et de la taxe de publicité foncière, la valeur de la nue-propriété et de l’usufruit est déterminée par une quotité de la valeur de la propriété entière, conformément au barème ci-après”, so that, for example, a life tenant in the early sixties holds half the value and the bare owners hold half, shifting with age. Get the age bracket right, evidence the market value with comparable land-registry prices rather than the estate agent’s optimism, and deduct properly documented liabilities such as the remaining mortgage, because the death value becomes the heir’s cost base for the later capital-gains computation: every euro conceded on the succession valuation returns as taxable gain on the sale, and vice versa, so the two files must be valued consistently.

On the sale, the non-resident heir is taxed in France on the gain measured from that death value. Where the heir kept the property transparently, article 150 U of the General Tax Code charges income tax on “les plus-values réalisées par les personnes physiques ou les sociétés ou groupements qui relèvent des articles 8 à 8 ter , lors de la cession à titre onéreux de biens immobiliers bâtis ou non bâtis ou de droits relatifs à ces biens”. The gain is the sale price minus the death value plus acquisition costs of the succession, works invoices and transfer duties, reduced by the statutory holding allowances, the abattements pour durée de détention, with social charges on top at their own scale. Because the seller lives in Britain, article 244 bis A of the same code imposes the levy on gains “réalisées par les personnes et organismes” covered by the non-resident rules, and the same article organises collection: “L’impôt dû en application du présent article est acquitté lors de l’enregistrement de l’acte ou, à défaut d’enregistrement, dans le mois suivant la cession, sous la responsabilité d’un représentant établi en France”. That representative, the représentant fiscal, an accredited professional established in France, computes the gain, files the return and pays the levy at the signing, and the notaire will not release the price without that signature. Since Brexit the exemption is closed to British sellers: “L’obligation de désigner un représentant fiscal ne s’applique pas lorsque le cédant est domicilié, établi ou constitué dans un Etat membre de l’Union européenne ou dans un autre Etat partie à l’accord sur l’Espace économique européen”, and the United Kingdom is neither. Budget the representative’s fee, appoint early so the computation is agreed before the signing date, and assemble the cost file now: the succession valuation, the death-duty receipt, works invoices in the heir’s or the deceased’s name, and agency mandates. The 2008 France-UK double tax treaty then allocates the primary right to tax immovable-property gains to France and obliges Britain to relieve the French tax against any British liability on the same gain, so declare on both sides and claim the credit rather than paying twice in silence. Challenge an excessive levy by attacking the base first, missing invoices being the usual defeat, through a reasoned claim to the tax office within the notice period and then before the administrative court, the tribunal administratif.

B. What do you do when the sale stalls, the notaire hesitates or the money sticks?

Most blocked sales unblock once the blocker is named precisely, because each block has its own forum and its own clock. Where a sibling refuses to sell, do not negotiate forever: serve a formal demand to divide, then petition the judicial court of the place of the house for a court-ordered division ending in allocation or auction, asking in the alternative for authorisation to sell at a floor price with the refusing heir’s share consigned. Courts dislike auctions that destroy value, so arrive with two valuations, evidence of marketing at a fair price, and proof that the refusing heir was offered a buy-out on identical terms. Where the buyer’s notaire hesitates over title, typically a missing heir, an unrecorded English will, or an unpaid protected-heir claim, answer with paper rather than pressure: the heirship deed, the sworn translation of the grant, the waivers or receipts of every protected heir, and a title opinion letter from your own notaire tracing the thirty-year ownership chain. A hesitating notaire who receives a complete chain almost always proceeds; one who receives assurances does not. Where the surviving spouse withholds consent to sell the full ownership, quantify her life interest on the statutory scale, offer the corresponding share of the price or a substitute annuity with security, and record the agreement before the notaire so the buyer sees a consent, not a dispute. Where the bank freezes the sale proceeds pending a tax clearance, the quitus fiscal, chase the clearance in writing with the death-duty receipt, the representative’s computation and the filed returns attached, and escalate to the bank’s succession department with a deadline, because branch-level files stall while specialist departments decide.

When amicable pressure fails, sue in the right forum and say exactly what you want. Division, allocation and auction belong to the judicial court of the place of the property, with representation by an avocat, and the petition should combine the division claim with provisional measures: appointment of an expert valuer, authorisation to market, and consignment of the disputed share. Reduction claims by protected heirs belong to the same court and must be directed against the right defendant, the donee or legatee first and the onward buyer only within the statutory conditions, so a buyer who discovers a claim mid-transaction should suspend, not cancel, and force the sellers to cure title by an agreed deadline with a price retention. Tax bills follow the administrative track: reasoned claim to the office within the notice period, appeal to the administrative court, and payment under protest where penalties would otherwise run, keeping every receipt for the treaty-credit claim on the British return. Throughout, keep the English and French files consistent: the same death value in the succession return and the gains computation, the same heir list in the grant and the heirship deed, the same sale price in the preliminary contract, the compromis de vente, and the final deed, the acte authentique de vente. Inconsistency between the two countries’ files is the single most expensive mistake British heirs make, because each administration taxes the version most favourable to itself and leaves the heir to reconcile the difference. Families handled from Paris and Île-de-France follow the same national rules through local offices, from the Paris judicial court to the non-resident tax directorate, so put the right office on the right envelope and diarise every deadline from the notice, not from the event.

Conclusion

A British heir who sells the inherited French house from the United Kingdom succeeds by treating the project as a chain, not a single sale. Prove heirship first, with the English grant and the French heirship deed agreeing on the heirs and the governing law, and file the succession return within the year the statute gives where death occurred abroad. Clear the title before marketing, with every co-heir’s written consent, the surviving spouse’s life interest quantified and bought out or preserved by agreement, and each protected child’s share computed and settled so the buyer’s notaire finds a clean file. Pay each tax once: French death duties on the death value with the treaty preventing a second full charge in Britain, then the French capital-gains levy through the accredited representative at the signing, with the British return claiming relief for the French tax. Appoint the representative early, because since Brexit no British-resident seller escapes that signature, and value the property consistently across the succession and sale files, because the two administrations will each keep the version that suits them. When a block appears, name it, forum it and clock it: division and auction before the court of the property, title doubts answered with deeds and waivers, tax disputes by reasoned claim and administrative appeal. The files that close are never the loudest; they are the best documented, with translations, valuations, receipts and consents ready before anyone asks.

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A telephone consultation within 48 hours with an avocat of the firm, for British heirs selling an inherited French house from the UK, disputed heirship, blocked sales, protected-heir claims or capital-gains and representative bills. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page. Our office in Paris advises clients across Paris and Île-de-France as well as British heirs throughout France.