Many British families hold their French house through a société civile immobilière, usually shortened to SCI. A SCI is a French non-trading property company: it owns the house while the family members own the company through parts sociales, or shares. The structure survives Brexit without difficulty, because a SCI is a French legal person whatever the nationality of its members. The problems start one generation later. British parents living between Kent and the Dordogne ask how to pass the shares to their children without a crushing tax bill, what happens to the shares if the couple divorces, how a child who wants out can leave, and what to do when the tax office or the other members block the plan. This article answers those four questions in order. It explains every French term as it goes, works through the figures with a realistic example, and sets out the exact procedures for challenging a refusal or a tax assessment. The general guides that present the SCI as a simple purchase vehicle are already well covered; this piece deals only with the next stage, which is giving the shares away and dividing them.

I. How British parents gift SCI shares to their children after Brexit

Giving away shares in a family SCI is the most effective way for British parents to organise the future of a French holiday home or retirement house. A gift made today, in the right form, can cut the tax payable on each transfer, keep the parents in the house for life, and spare the children a forced sale later. The operation always passes through a French notaire, always produces registration duties unless allowances absorb them, and always interacts with the forced-heirship rules that protect children. The three points below follow the order in which a family should think: which legal route to use, how the gift is carried out in practice, and what it costs.

A. Which gift route passes on SCI shares and keeps parents secure

Three routes exist, and they do not offer the same protection. The first is the outright gift of full-ownership shares. Each parent gives some of their shares to each child, the children become full members of the SCI immediately, and the parents keep only what they have not given. The operation is simple but it has two drawbacks: the parents lose control over the shares they have given, and the children can vote, sell or demand accounts from day one. The second route is the gift with reservation of a life interest, known in French as donation of the nue-propriété with retention of the usufruit. The usufruit is, in the words of article 578 of the Civil Code, “le droit de jouir des choses dont un autre a la propriété, comme le propriétaire lui-même, mais à la charge d’en conserver la substance”, which means the right to use the property as its owner would, on condition of preserving it. In practice the parents keep the right to live in the house or to receive the rent for the rest of their lives, while the children hold the bare ownership and recover full ownership free of further duty when the second parent dies. For a family home this second route is normally the right one.

The third route is the donation-partage, or gift-partition, which divides the shares among the children in a single deed so that each child receives a defined lot now. Article 1075 of the Civil Code provides that “Toute personne peut faire, entre ses héritiers présomptifs, la distribution et le partage de ses biens et de ses droits. Cet acte peut se faire sous forme de donation-partage ou de testament-partage.” A British couple with three children can therefore allocate, for example, the bare ownership of one third of the shares to each child in one deed, with values fixed and balanced on the day. The advantage is finality: unlike an ordinary gift, which is revalued at the date of the later partition of the estate, each lot of a donation-partage is frozen at its value on the day of the deed, so later rises in Dordogne or Provence prices do not reopen the quarrel. The Cour de cassation regularly deals with such deeds over SCI shares: in a judgment of 2 July 2025 concerning three family property companies, the First Civil Chamber recorded that a mother had “consenti à ses trois fils une donation-partage portant sur la pleine propriété de ses parts” of one company “et la nue-propriété de ses parts” of the other two, each son receiving a defined number of shares (Cass. civ. 1, 2 July 2025, no. 23-13.065). That decision shows both how common the technique is and how carefully the resulting lots are later examined.

In practice the procedure runs as follows. The parents instruct a French notaire, who values the house, reads the SCI statutes, and checks the approval clause, known as the agrément clause. Article 1861 of the Civil Code states that “Les parts sociales ne peuvent être cédées qu’avec l’agrément de tous les associés”, while adding that “Sauf dispositions contraires des statuts, ne sont pas soumises à agrément les cessions consenties à des ascendants ou descendants du cédant.” Most well-drafted family statutes therefore exempt gifts to children from approval, but older statutes sometimes require it, in which case the notaire notifies the gift plan to the company and collects the written approval before the deed is signed. The deed itself must be drawn by the notaire, because gifts of shares are notarial acts, and article 1865 of the Civil Code requires that “La cession de parts sociales doit être constatée par écrit”, made binding on the company by service or entry in the company register, and published at the trade and companies register before it binds third parties. The new members are then entered in the SCI register, the registre des associés, and the manager, or gérant, updates the company books. British parents should also review their English wills at the same moment: choosing English law to govern the succession in the will, as explained in our guide to British wills over French houses, organises who inherits what remains, but it does not change the French gift-tax allowances described below, which apply independently of the chosen succession law.

B. What the gift of SCI shares costs and how heirs are protected

French gift tax, or droits de donation, applies to the value of the shares transferred, after allowances. Each parent can give 100,000 euros to each child free of tax, because article 779 of the General Tax Code grants “un abattement de 100 000 € sur la part de chacun des ascendants et sur la part de chacun des enfants vivants ou représentés”. A couple with two children therefore shelters 400,000 euros of share value in one operation. Above the allowance, the progressive scale in the direct line applies, and article 777 of the General Tax Code sets it from 5% on the slice “N’excédant pas 8 072 €” up to 45% “Au-delà de 1 805 677 €”. When the parents retain the usufruit, only the bare ownership is taxed, and its value is a statutory fraction of the full value depending on the age of the surviving parent. Article 669 of the General Tax Code fixes the scale, from 90% usufruct under 21 years down to 10% over 91 years, with the mirror fraction for the bare ownership. Take a realistic example: a house worth 500,000 euros held in a SCI, both parents aged 65, giving the bare ownership equally to two children. At that age the usufruct counts for 50% and the bare ownership for 50%, so the taxable base is 250,000 euros, or 125,000 euros per child. Each child deducts the 100,000-euro allowance and pays tax on 25,000 euros, roughly 2,800 euros each at the 5 to 15% marginal bands. Without the retained life interest, the same gift would be taxed on the full 500,000 euros. When the surviving parent later dies, the life interest ends and the children become full owners with no further transfer duty on that extinction.

Two administrative points complete the picture. First, the notarial deed must be registered within one month, since article 635 of the General Tax Code provides that “Doivent être enregistrés dans le délai d’un mois à compter de leur date” the listed notarial acts and transfers of property rights. Second, earlier gifts must be disclosed in the deed, because article 784 of the General Tax Code requires that “Les parties sont tenues de faire connaître, dans tout acte constatant une transmission entre vifs à titre gratuit et dans toute déclaration de succession, s’il existe ou non des donations antérieures”, and gifts made within the previous fifteen years are added back to compute the tax, which is why spacing gifts over time matters. British families should keep copies of every deed and every tax receipt, since the notaire settling the later succession will ask for them.

The gift must also respect the réserve héréditaire, the forced share that French law guarantees to children. Article 912 of the Civil Code defines it as “la part des biens et droits successoraux dont la loi assure la dévolution libre de charges à certains héritiers dits réservataires”, and article 913 of the Civil Code caps lifetime and testamentary gifts at one half of the estate with one child, one third with two children, and one quarter with three or more. A gift of SCI shares that exceeds the available portion is not void, but the disadvantaged child can bring an action to reduce it, known as the action en réduction, and ordinary gifts are brought back into account through the rapport. The Cour de cassation recalled the governing rule in the July 2025 decision cited above, quoting the text that “Le rapport est dû de la valeur du bien donné à l’époque du partage, d’après son état à l’époque de la donation”, with adjustment if the property was sold before partition (article 860 of the Civil Code). The donation-partage largely neutralises this risk by fixing values and lots with all children present, which is another reason practitioners recommend it for SCI shares. Families who already hold the house in joint ownership rather than through a company face a different set of blockages, described in our guide to leaving joint ownership over a French house.

II. How SCI shares are divided, sold and challenged after Brexit

Shares that were easy to give can be hard to take back, to sell, or to divide when the family breaks apart. Divorce reorganises who owns what, a child may want to cash out, and the tax office may reassess a value it considers understated. This second part deals with the exit routes in the same practical order: first the divorce of the parent-members, then the sale or withdrawal of a member, and finally the remedies when someone says no, with the Paris specifics that matter to families whose house, notaire or court lies in the capital region.

A. Which spouse keeps the SCI shares on divorce and who pays whom

The answer depends on when and how the shares entered the family. Shares subscribed or bought during the marriage with joint funds normally belong to the community, or communauté, where the couple married without a contract or under the English regime as analysed in our guide to matrimonial regimes for British couples in France. Shares owned before the marriage, received by gift or inheritance during it, or bought with separate funds remain separate property, or biens propres. The notaire or the divorce judge reconstructs this history from bank transfers, deeds and the SCI register, and mixed funding gives rise to compensation payments, known as récompenses, between the community and the owning spouse. A common British pattern is instructive: a husband subscribes 90% of the shares before the wedding, the couple then repays the loan on the SCI house with salaries earned during the marriage. The shares remain his separate property, but he owes a compensation to the community measured on the profit that the joint repayments generated.

Once ownership is characterised, the shares must be divided or attributed. The spouses can agree that one of them takes all the shares and pays the other a balancing sum, or soulte, often funded by a loan secured on the house. If they cannot agree, the judge orders the liquidation of the matrimonial regime and can attribute the shares to the spouse best placed to manage the company, with compensation fixed by an expert valuation of the house less the company debts. Transfers of shares between spouses during the proceedings must respect company law: article 1861 of the Civil Code adds that “Lorsque deux époux sont simultanément membres d’une société, les cessions faites par l’un d’eux à l’autre doivent, pour être valables, résulter d’un acte notarié ou d’un acte sous seing privé ayant acquis date certaine autrement que par le décès du cédant.” A private agreement scribbled between spouses therefore fails, and the notaire must draw the transfer. The judge can also order a compensatory payment, or prestation compensatoire, to offset the disparity in living standards created by the divorce. Article 270 of the Civil Code provides that “Le divorce met fin au devoir de secours entre époux”, while one spouse may be ordered to pay the other a benefit compensating, as far as possible, the disparity in their respective living conditions. In practice the spouse who keeps the French house through the SCI often pays both a soulte for the shares and a prestation compensatoire for the standard of living, and both must be budgeted before accepting the attribution. Where children are involved, the parent who keeps the shares usually also negotiates who occupies the house during school holidays, but occupation is a use arrangement, not ownership, and it should be recorded separately.

B. How a member sells or leaves, what tax follows, and how to challenge a blockage

A member who wants out has two doors: sell the shares to someone else, or withdraw from the company and be repaid the value of the rights. A sale to a third party normally needs the approval of the other members under the agrément clause, and a refusal does not leave the seller trapped: the statutes or the court organise a buy-back of the shares at an expert valuation. A sale to the member’s own children is normally free of approval, as seen above, which is why intra-family transfers flow easily while sales outside the family can stall. The second door is withdrawal, or retrait. Article 1869 of the Civil Code provides that “Sans préjudice des droits des tiers, un associé peut se retirer totalement ou partiellement de la société, dans les conditions prévues par les statuts ou, à défaut, après autorisation donnée par une décision unanime des autres associés”, adding that “Ce retrait peut également être autorisé pour justes motifs par une décision de justice.” The Cour de cassation enforces this framework strictly: ruling on a case where an associate had notified withdrawal and the general meeting had purported to defer it until the sale of the company’s buildings, the Third Civil Chamber decided by cassation “Vu l’article 1869 du code civil” (Cass. civ. 3, 29 September 2016, no. 15-18.396). A British child who has received shares by gift and later emigrates to Australia can therefore ask the court to authorise withdrawal for good cause if the siblings refuse unanimously, and the value repaid is fixed by expert assessment at the date closest to the withdrawal, not at the historic gift value.

The tax on exit depends on what is sold. Selling the shares themselves triggers the capital-gains regime for buildings, because the SCI is tax-transparent and the member is treated as disposing of bricks and mortar: article 150 U of the General Tax Code makes taxable, under the detailed conditions of the following articles, gains realised “lors de la cession à titre onéreux de biens immobiliers bâtis ou non bâtis ou de droits relatifs à ces biens” by individuals and by companies or groupings falling under the transparent-company provisions. The rate combines income tax and social levies, with a taper for years of ownership that exempts long-held property after twenty-two years for the tax and thirty years for the levies. A sale of the whole house by the SCI followed by distribution of the cash is taxed in the hands of each member on the same basis. British sellers who have returned to the United Kingdom remain taxable in France on the French property gain, with a credit mechanism in Britain under the bilateral treaty, as our guide to selling a former French home after leaving explains. Families sometimes ask whether putting the house into a SCI changes the nature of the asset for succession purposes; shares in a French property company remain French-situated assets in the eyes of the French tax office, and structures built around foreign trusts over French houses are treated under a separate, harsher declaration regime described in our analysis of British trusts and France. For completeness, companies whose sole purpose is to build, buy and divide buildings among members fall under the special attribution provisions of article 1655 ter of the General Tax Code, which opens by covering companies having “en fait, pour unique objet soit la construction ou l’acquisition d’immeubles ou de groupes d’immeubles en vue de leur division par fractions destinées à être attribuées aux associés” — a different vehicle from the ordinary family management SCI discussed here, and the statutes should keep the two models distinct.

When the plan is blocked, each type of blockage has its own remedy. If the tax office reassesses the declared share value, the member files a formal claim, or réclamation, with the local public-finance office within the statutory time limit, attaching the valuation report and comparable sales, and appeals to the administrative court if the reply is negative; paying the disputed sum first avoids late-payment surcharges while the case runs. If the other members refuse approval or withdrawal unreasonably, the blocked member petitions the judicial court, or tribunal judiciaire, for authorisation to withdraw or for appointment of an expert to value the shares. If the notaire declines to draw the gift deed because the approval clause or the matrimonial history is unclear, the family commissions a written legal opinion, amends the statutes by unanimous resolution, and returns with a clean file rather than pressing the notaire to act on an uncertain basis. For Paris and Ile-de-France families, three practical points help: Paris notarial offices handle a heavy volume of English-language files and should be asked early for a sworn translation schedule; disputes over Paris-held SCI shares go to the Paris judicial court, whose civil division expects a complete valuation bundle before fixing a hearing; and valuation experts in the capital region apply district-level comparable evidence, so a Val-de-Marne pavilion and a seventh-arrondissement apartment are never assessed on the same per-metre figures. Whatever the forum, the file that wins is the file that is complete: statutes, register of members, loan statements, gift deeds, tax receipts and the expert valuation in one bundle.

Conclusion

For British families, the SCI remains a sound vehicle for holding a French home after Brexit, provided the parents use it as a transmission tool rather than a static shelter. The gift of the bare ownership of the shares through a donation-partage, made while both parents are alive and keeping the life interest, usually delivers the lowest tax bill and the most durable family peace, because each 100,000-euro allowance is used, the taxable base is halved by the retained usufruct, and the lots are frozen against future price rises. Divorce does not break the vehicle, but it forces a rigorous sorting of community and separate shares, with compensation payments that must be financed realistically. Exit is always possible, through approved sale or court-authorised withdrawal, and every refusal or reassessment can be challenged before the proper court with a complete file. The families who succeed are those who have the statutes read, the values evidenced and the deeds drawn before the crisis arrives, so that the French house passes to the children as planned instead of being sold to pay for a dispute.