You bought the stone house in the Dordogne years ago, you wrote an English will leaving everything to your spouse, and you assumed the matter was settled. Then a French notaire tells your children that the will cannot do what you wrote, or your spouse learns after your death that the house cannot pass to her alone, or one of your children asks a French court to claw back part of a gift you made a decade ago. For British families with a home in France, these are not remote risks. Since Brexit, you are a third-country national living under a European succession framework that still applies to you, combined with French forced heirship rules that English law does not know. This article explains, in practical terms, which law governs your French house when you die, what choosing English law in your will can and cannot achieve, how the French forced share for children works, and what your family can do when the estate stalls or a notaire refuses to act.

Three points shape everything that follows. First, the European Succession Regulation still decides questions of jurisdiction and applicable law for your French assets even though the United Kingdom has left the Union, because France applies it as its own conflicts rule. Second, if you live in France, French law normally governs your whole succession unless your will validly chooses English law, and even that choice does not sweep away every French protection. Third, France reserves a fixed share of your estate for your children, and a child who receives too little can bring a court action to reduce excessive gifts and legacies. Each of these points is developed below with the exact legal texts and the court decisions that interpret them, so that you can draft a will that works on both sides of the Channel and your family knows the procedure when something goes wrong.

Two vocabulary notes before we start, because French terms recur throughout. The notaire is the French public officer who settles estates, draws up authentic wills and issues certificates of heirship; nothing of substance happens in a French succession without the notaire. The réserve héréditaire, or forced share, is the fraction of your estate that French law guarantees to your children, as opposed to the quotité disponible, the freely disposable fraction you may leave to anyone. Where French words appear below, their meaning is recalled at first use.

I. Which law governs your French house when you die in France after Brexit

Before Brexit, many British buyers assumed that owning a French house through direct ownership or through a property company, combined with an English will, kept English succession rules in charge of the French property. That assumption was never fully correct, and since 1 January 2021 it has become positively misleading. France applies Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of 4 July 2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement in matters of succession to every cross-border estate handled by its courts and notaires, whatever the nationality of the deceased. The United Kingdom never opted into that Regulation and is no longer bound by it, but that changes nothing for your house in the Dordogne, the Luberon or Paris: the French authorities characterise your estate under French conflicts rules, which means the Regulation. Understanding how it designates the applicable law is therefore the first task for every British owner.

A. Living in France usually means French succession law governs your whole estate

The general rule of the Regulation is stated in one sentence that every British resident in France should know: Article 21(1) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of 4 July 2012 on succession matters, which provides that the whole succession is governed by the law of the State where the deceased had habitual residence at death. Habitual residence means, in ordinary language, where you actually lived your daily life at the date of death: the duration and regularity of your presence, the location of your family and social life, where you paid tax, where you were registered for health care, where your children went to school. The recitals of the Regulation direct the authority handling the estate to make an overall assessment of the circumstances of the life of the deceased during the years preceding death, taking account of all relevant factual elements. For a British national who moved to France permanently, holds a Withdrawal Agreement residence permit, lives year-round in the French house and visits England for holidays, the answer is normally France. French law then governs the succession as a whole, including the French house and, in principle, English bank accounts and investments as well, subject to what an English court would accept on its own side.

French domestic law confirms the central role of the last home. “Les successions s’ouvrent par la mort, au dernier domicile du défunt.” (Article 720 of the Civil Code: successions open on death at the last domicile of the deceased.) From that opening flow all the practical steps: the heirs designated by the applicable law are identified, the debts are inventoried, the will is produced, and the notaire draws up the deed of notoriety. “Les héritiers désignés par la loi sont saisis de plein droit des biens, droits et actions du défunt.” (Article 724 of the Civil Code: the heirs designated by the law take possession of the property, rights and actions of the deceased as of right.) Saisine, the automatic vesting of the estate in the heirs, surprises many British families, because under English law the personal representatives first collect the assets before distributing. In France the heir is seized directly, which is why banks freeze accounts until the heir proves status, and why the European Certificate of Succession discussed below matters so much in practice.

The courts apply these connecting factors strictly, and the litigation shows how much turns on habitual residence. In a widely noted case, three children of a French national who had died in France asked a French court to appoint an estate administrator, arguing that their father’s habitual residence at death was in France and invoking Article 4 of the Succession Regulation; the widow, who lived in London, disputed French jurisdiction. The Cour de cassation recorded the argument “en soutenant que la résidence habituelle de C… X… au jour de son décès était située en France” (First Civil Chamber, 18 November 2020, appeal No 19-15.438, referring the interpretation point to the Court of Justice of the European Union). The lesson for British readers is direct: where you lived in fact at death decides which court hears the case and, through Article 21, presumptively which law applies. Keeping clear evidence of your life in France — residence permit, tax notices, health registration, utility bills, school records — is therefore not administrative tidiness but proof of the connecting factor that will govern your estate.

French courts also accept that the applicable law may exceptionally be that of another State where the deceased was manifestly more closely connected with it, under Article 21(2) of the Regulation, but this escape clause is narrow. A British national who spent thirty years in France, raised children there and owned only a small English current account will struggle to argue a manifestly closer connection with England. Conversely, a second-home owner who lived full-time in Kent, spent August in the Charente house and died domiciled in England will normally remain under English law for movable assets, while French special rules for immovable property and the compensatory mechanism described below still bite on the French house. The practical message is that residence planning and succession planning are the same exercise: the place you make your life determines the law that distributes your property.

Official guidance confirms the breadth of the French notarial settlement. The public service portal service-public.fr explains, in its succession file, that the notaire establishes the devolution, collects the wills registered in the national wills file, draws up the inventory and distributes the assets (service-public.fr, Succession: opening and settlement). For a British family this means the French notaire is not an optional adviser but the gatekeeper: without the notarial deeds, the land registry will not transfer the French house, the bank will not release funds, and the tax office will not accept the estate return. Choosing the applicable law correctly in advance is what allows that gatekeeper to move the file forward instead of blocking it.

B. Choosing English law in your will and what that choice can and cannot do

The Regulation gives you one powerful tool to escape the habitual-residence rule: a choice of law, known in French as professio juris, the declaration by which a person designates the law that will govern the succession. The rule is short and worth quoting exactly: Article 22(1) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of 4 July 2012, which allows a person to choose the law of the State of his or her nationality, held either when the choice is made or at death, to govern the succession as a whole. A British national may therefore choose English law, or Scots law if Scottish, to govern the succession as a whole. The choice must be made expressly in a declaration made in the form of a disposition of property upon death, or as shown by the terms of such a disposition (Article 22(2) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012). In practice this means a written clause in your will stating that you choose the law of England and Wales to govern your succession, dated and signed with the will itself, ideally mirrored in both your English will and your French will so that neither document casts doubt on the other.

Form matters as much as substance, and the cheapest way to make your will fail in France is to neglect it. French law recognises the holograph will, the testament olographe, which is the entirely handwritten, dated and signed will many British residents write at the kitchen table: “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.” (Article 970 of the Civil Code.) Every word must be in your hand, with the date and the signature. A will typed on a computer and merely signed, valid in England with two witnesses, is not a valid holograph will in France. If you prefer an English-style signed and witnessed will, it can still be effective in France through the 1961 Hague Convention on the form of wills, which validates a will that complies with the law of the place where it was made or of your nationality — but you must then prove that foreign compliance to the French notaire, with a certified translation and if needed a legal opinion on English law. Many families simplify matters by making two wills: an English will for English assets choosing English law, and a French will before a French notaire for the French house repeating the same choice of law, each expressly stating that it does not revoke the other. Registration of the French will in the national wills file (fichier central des dispositions de dernières volontés) ensures the notaire finds it at death.

What the choice of English law achieves is considerable: the English rules on testamentary freedom, on the appointment of executors, on the administration of the estate and on the interpretation of legacies govern instead of the French equivalents. Your appointment of your spouse as executor, your trust-like arrangements and your specific legacies are read under English law. What the choice does not achieve is a complete escape from French protections, for three reasons British testators often overlook. First, Article 30 of the Regulation preserves special French rules for certain assets, such as family dwellings and farms, which apply regardless of the chosen law. Second, French courts retain a public-policy exception for provisions manifestly incompatible with French ordre public, though since the 2017 litigation on foreign laws excluding daughters, that exception is applied narrowly and no longer treats the forced share itself as automatically a matter of French international public policy. Third, and most concretely, the French statute of 24 August 2021 created a compensatory levy, the prélèvement compensatoire, which allows a child deprived by the applicable foreign law of any forced-share protection to take compensation from French-sited assets. Because you chose English law, which gives children no forced share, a child habitually resident in France or a national of a Member State can invoke that levy against your French house, as explained in Part II.

The Cour de cassation has repeatedly shown that foreign elements do not paralyse the French settlement but channel it. In a 2018 decision concerning a Moroccan will homologated abroad, the Court accepted that the French judge could still apply the French forced share to immovable property situated in France within the limits of the disposable fraction, holding in substance that the foreign homologation judgment “n’interdit nullement la mise en oeuvre de la réserve sur les biens immobiliers situés en France” (First Civil Chamber, 4 July 2018, appeals Nos 17-16.515 and 17-16.522). The connecting logic transfers directly to a British estate under English chosen law: the choice is effective, but the French house remains exposed to the compensatory claim of a protected child. Drafting must therefore anticipate that claim rather than pretend English freedom travels unqualified into France.

Practical drafting for a British owner follows from these principles. Put the Article 22 choice in express words and in the correct form. Name the law precisely — the law of England and Wales, not “British law” — and state that it governs the succession as a whole. Coordinate multiple wills so they do not accidentally revoke each other; an English will that revokes “all former wills” can silently kill the French will made the year before. Review the clause after every nationality change, marriage, divorce or move, because the choice is tested at death against the nationality you then hold. And keep evidence of habitual residence alongside the will, so the notaire can establish without dispute whether French law applies by default or English law applies by choice. These steps cost little and prevent the most common blockage: a notaire who cannot determine the applicable law and therefore cannot distribute.

II. When the French forced share bites and how your family challenges or defends the outcome

English readers often discover the French forced share only at the worst moment, when a notaire explains that the will leaving everything to the surviving spouse cannot be carried out as written because the children are entitled by law to a fixed fraction. The shock is understandable: English law starts from testamentary freedom, tempered only by discretionary family provision on application to the court, while French law starts from a guaranteed share. Once you own a house in France or live there, that guaranteed share enters your planning whether you chose English law or not, through the réserve héréditaire itself under French law or through the prélèvement compensatoire where English law applies. This second part sets out how the share is calculated, how a disadvantaged child enforces it, and how the family obtains the documents and court orders that unblock the estate.

A. How the forced share for children and the court action to reduce excessive gifts work

The forced share, the réserve héréditaire, is defined by the Civil Code as the protected portion of the estate: “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.” (Article 912 of the Civil Code.) Only certain heirs are protected, in practice your children, or your spouse only where there are no children. The freely disposable fraction, the quotité disponible, is simply the rest: everything the law does not reserve, which you may give by lifetime gift or by will to anyone, including your spouse, a partner, a charity or one child favoured over the others.

The fractions are fixed by statute and every British parent should memorise them: “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.” (Article 913 of the Civil Code.) With one child, the forced share is one half and the disposable fraction is one half; with two children, the forced share is two thirds and the disposable fraction one third; with three or more children, the forced share is three quarters and the disposable fraction one quarter. The calculation is performed on a notional mass that adds back lifetime gifts to the assets existing at death, so a large gift made years ago to one child or to a new spouse counts when measuring whether another child’s share was invaded. This fictitious reunion of gifts is where British families who gave the French house to one child, or who made substantial lifetime transfers in England, are caught unprepared.

Where English law governs by choice and gives a child no forced share, the 2021 compensatory levy restores a limited French protection against the French assets. The statute provides: “Lorsque le défunt ou au moins l’un de ses enfants est, au moment du décès, ressortissant d’un Etat membre de l’Union européenne ou y réside habituellement et 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.” (Article 913, final paragraph.) Note the conditions carefully, because they decide real cases. At least the deceased or one child must be a national of, or habitually resident in, a Member State at death — a condition that still covers French-resident British children and French-resident deceased persons even though the United Kingdom has left the Union, since France, Ireland or any Member State of residence suffices. The applicable foreign law must allow no forced-share mechanism for children, which is the case for English law. And the levy operates only against assets situated in France at death, principally the French house, and only up to the French forced share. A British father resident in France who leaves everything to his second wife under an English-law will may therefore find his daughter from a first marriage taking compensation directly from the French house up to her forced fraction. Advisers who present an English-law choice as a way to disinherit a child in France are describing the law as it stood before November 2021, not as it stands today.

The enforcement tool is the action en réduction, the court action by which a forced heir claws back excessive gifts and legacies. Standing is narrow: “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.” (Article 921 of the Civil Code: only the protected heirs, their heirs or assigns may claim reduction.) Time limits are strict and twofold: “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.” (Article 921: five years from opening, or two years from knowledge of the invasion, never more than ten years from death.) A child who suspects an invasion should therefore act quickly, seek the estate accounts from the notaire, and issue proceedings within time rather than waiting for family negotiations to conclude. The remedy, since the 2006 reform, is normally a money payment rather than recovery of the house itself: “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.” (Article 924 of the Civil Code.) The surviving spouse who received the whole house does not necessarily lose the roof; she pays compensation up to the excess, which can still force a sale where the estate is illiquid.

The courts interpret these actions pragmatically in favour of heirs who move the settlement forward. The Cour de cassation has held that a claim for reduction needs no special form of words: asking the court to open the operations of account, liquidation and partition, with reunion of gifts to the notional mass, itself manifests the wish to reduce excessive gifts. The Court reasoned “c’est par une interprétation nécessaire, exclusive de dénaturation, qu’après avoir constaté que les consorts Y… demandaient l’ouverture des opérations de comptes, liquidation et partage” the court of appeal could treat the partition claim as carrying the reduction claim (First Civil Chamber, 10 January 2018, appeal No 16-27.894). For a British family this means a child who issues a partition summons in time preserves the reduction argument even if the summons does not use the technical label. Conversely, a beneficiary who hopes the claim will vanish if the word reduction is never uttered misunderstands the case law.

Proof of status underpins every step, and French law helps heirs here: “La preuve de la qualité d’héritier s’établit par tous moyens.” (Article 730 of the Civil Code: proof of heirship may be by any means.) English grants of probate, birth and marriage certificates, the English will with translation, and the French deed of notoriety all contribute. Where cohabitation or a disputed will clouds the devolution, early collection of civil-status records in both countries avoids months of correspondence between the French notaire and the English probate registry.

B. Getting the estate released when the notaire stalls, from certificate to court order

In the ordinary British-French estate, the file moves through four stages: the notaire verifies death, domicile and family; identifies the applicable law and reads the wills; draws up the deed of notoriety and the inventory; then partitions, pays compensation where due and transfers the house at the land registry while the family files the French estate tax return. Each stage has a characteristic blockage. The notaire may hesitate over the applicable law where wills conflict. A bank may freeze funds pending proof of heirship. A co-heir may refuse to sign the partition. Or the notaire may decline to apply English law without proof of its content. Knowing the document or court application that answers each blockage turns months of stalemate into a managed procedure.

The most useful document in a cross-border estate is the European Certificate of Succession, the certificat successoral européen, created by the Regulation to prove heirship across Member States without re-proving status in each country. The Cour de cassation described its mechanics in a case where a German certificate was presented to a French bank: the German notarial service had “établi au profit de celui-ci un certificat successoral européen sur le fondement de l’article 67 du règlement UE n° 650/2012 du 4 juillet 2012” (First Civil Chamber, 13 April 2022, appeal No 20-23.530). The heir then demanded the estate funds from the bank. The Court confirmed that the certificate proves heirship directly, while allowing the bank to require, in that case, proof that the foreign will had been registered for French tax purposes under Article 1000 of the Civil Code before releasing money. British families should draw two lessons. First, ask the French notaire to issue a European Certificate of Succession as well as the domestic deed of notoriety; the certificate opens doors with English banks, registrars and investment platforms that would otherwise demand an English grant. Second, expect French banks to insist on the tax registration of the will and on certified translations; preparing those alongside the certificate avoids a second round of requests.

Where the notaire identifies a possible invasion of the forced share, the statute now imposes a warning duty that British heirs should welcome: “Lorsque le notaire constate, lors du règlement de la succession, que les droits réservataires d’un héritier sont susceptibles d’être atteints par les libéralités effectuées par le défunt, il informe chaque héritier concerné et connu, individuellement et, le cas échéant, avant tout partage, de son droit de demander la réduction des libéralités qui excèdent la quotité disponible.” (Article 921, final paragraph.) If you are the child who received too little, that letter is the starting point for advice: have the notional mass checked, value the French house independently, list lifetime gifts on both sides of the Channel, and decide within the limitation period whether to claim reduction or negotiate compensation. If you are the surviving spouse or the favoured child, the same letter warns you not to distribute or sell before the claim is settled, since a hurried sale at an undervalue can aggravate the dispute and complicate the compensation calculation.

When agreement proves impossible, French procedure offers graduated remedies rather than a single all-or-nothing trial. A co-heir who refuses every partition proposal can be summoned before the tribunal judiciaire for an order opening account, liquidation and partition operations and appointing a notaire to conduct them under court supervision; as seen above, that summons also preserves the reduction claim. Where the estate needs urgent protection — a house standing empty, rent to collect, insurance lapsing, a buyer waiting — the president of the court can appoint a mandataire successoral, an estate administrator, in interim proceedings. Where the dispute concerns the validity of the will itself, for example an allegedly undated holograph will or a will said to have been revoked by a later English will, an action for nullity is brought before the tribunal judiciaire, with handwriting evidence, witness testimony on English execution formalities and expert evidence on English law as needed. Readers in Paris and the Île-de-France should note the local practice: cross-border files in the capital are handled by notarial offices accustomed to English-language documents, the tribunal judiciaire de Paris hears the partition and validity actions for estates opened in its district, and the practical delays depend heavily on producing sworn translations early. Preparing a bilingual bundle — English will, French translation by a sworn translator, grant of probate with apostille, French death certificate, land title — shortens every Paris timetable.

Families who hold the French house through a property company, the société civile immobilière commonly called the SCI, face one additional layer that deserves a clear warning. The forced-share and reduction rules still apply to the value transmitted, but through the shares of the company rather than the bricks themselves, and gifts of shares, loans to the company and free occupation complicate valuation. Litigation over SCI shares adds company accounts, shareholder resolutions and tax filings to the evidence, and the notaire will ask for the full company file before calculating the notional mass. If your French house sits in an SCI and your wills do not mention the shares, update both wills now: name the company, describe the shares, repeat the Article 22 choice of law, and state how the shares are to pass. For a detailed treatment of how the surviving spouse keeps the use of the family home, our analysis of the spouse’s housing rights and usufruct over the French house (keeping the French home as the surviving spouse: usufruct and housing rights) completes this article on the property side.

Deadlines deserve a final emphasis because British families accustomed to the more flexible English family-provision timetable miss them. The French estate tax return must normally be filed within six months of death where death occurred in France, or twelve months where it occurred abroad, with interest and penalties for delay running independently of any civil dispute between heirs. The civil reduction action prescribes as set out above. And a bank that has frozen funds will not wait indefinitely; prolonged inaction can push the file into unclaimed-asset procedures. The working method that succeeds is therefore: secure the wills and the death certificate in week one, instruct the French notaire within the first month, obtain the deed of notoriety and the European Certificate promptly, file the tax return on time even where shares are disputed by paying on a provisional basis, and issue protective proceedings before limitation expires rather than after negotiations collapse.

Conclusion

A British will can still govern a French house after Brexit, but only if it is drafted for the Regulation that France applies, in the form France accepts, with the choice of English law expressed in the words Article 22 requires. Even then, the French forced share for children does not disappear: it operates directly where French law applies by habitual residence, and through the compensatory levy on French assets where English law applies by choice. The child who receives too little has a court action for reduction within strict time limits, normally satisfied by compensation rather than loss of the house, while the family that organises proof of heirship through the notaire and the European Certificate of Succession keeps banks, registries and tax offices moving. Draft the choice-of-law clause now, coordinate the English and French wills, value lifetime gifts on both sides of the Channel, and treat the notaire’s warning letter as the signal to take advice rather than as the end of the matter. An estate prepared on these lines passes through the French settlement in months; an estate left to assumptions about English freedom litigates for years over the same house.