Your father lived in Dordogne for fifteen years, owned a stone house with a mortgage still running, owed arrears of taxe foncière (the French local property tax) and left three bank accounts, two of them overdrawn. You live in Manchester, you hold a British passport, and the French notaire (the public officer who settles estates in France) has just written to tell you that you are an heir. The first question is not who gets the house. It is whether the whole estate is worth accepting at all, because under French law the person who accepts an estate can end up paying its debts out of their own pocket. This guide explains the three choices French law gives you, the deadlines that frame them, the paperwork you can complete from Britain, and the traps that catch heirs who deal with a French estate from across the Channel: touching the assets too soon, hiding an account, or simply doing nothing for too long.

I. Accept, limit or walk away: the three options open to the British heir

A. What outright acceptance, acceptance up to the net assets and renunciation really mean

French law gives every heir the same three-way choice, familiarly called the option successorale (the heir’s right to choose). The Civil Code states that “L’héritier peut accepter la succession purement et simplement ou y renoncer. Il peut également accepter la succession à concurrence de l’actif net lorsqu’il a une vocation universelle ou à titre universel. Est nulle l’option conditionnelle ou à terme.” (Article 768 of the Civil Code). In plain English: you may accept outright, renounce, or — where you are a general heir rather than the recipient of a single defined legacy — accept à concurrence de l’actif net (up to the amount of the net assets, meaning your liability for debts is capped at what the estate contains). No conditional or time-limited choice is valid, so you cannot accept for the house while refusing the loans. Each option below carries a different price, and the right one depends entirely on whether the estate is solvent.

Outright acceptance (acceptation pure et simple) makes you the full continuator of the deceased. You take the assets, and you take the debts with them, without limit. The Code provides that “L’héritier universel ou à titre universel qui accepte purement et simplement la succession répond indéfiniment des dettes et charges qui en dépendent. Il n’est tenu des legs de sommes d’argent qu’à concurrence de l’actif successoral net des dettes.” (Article 785 of the Civil Code). The word to retain is indéfiniment (without limit): if the mortgage, the overdrafts, the unpaid income tax and the care-home arrears exceed the value of the house and the accounts, the creditors can pursue your own money in Britain — your salary, your savings, your own house — for the balance. Only cash legacies left by the deceased are capped at the net estate. Outright acceptance suits a clearly solvent estate, typically where a French house owned free of mortgage outweighs modest debts. It is dangerous wherever the deceased borrowed late in life, guaranteed someone else’s loan, ran a business with professional debts, or simply stopped opening letters. Once made, the choice is locked: “L’héritier acceptant purement et simplement ne peut plus renoncer à la succession ni l’accepter à concurrence de l’actif net.” (Article 786 of the Civil Code). There is only a narrow judicial escape where a debt surfaces later: the same article continues, “Toutefois, il peut demander à être déchargé en tout ou partie de son obligation à une dette successorale qu’il avait des motifs légitimes d’ignorer au moment de l’acceptation, lorsque l’acquittement de cette dette aurait pour effet d’obérer gravement son patrimoine personnel.” In other words, a court can partly release you from a debt you had legitimate reasons not to know about when you accepted, if paying it would seriously damage your personal wealth — but you must act within five months of discovering it, you must prove your ignorance was legitimate, and judges apply this relief strictly. Never accept outright while a material debt remains unverified.

Acceptance up to the net assets (acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net) is the middle path, and very often the sensible default for a British heir who cannot see the full picture from Manchester or London. The mechanism allows you to ring-fence your own wealth: creditors of the estate are paid only out of the estate’s assets, and what they cannot recover there, they cannot take from you. The declaration is simple in form — “Un héritier peut déclarer qu’il n’entend prendre cette qualité qu’à concurrence de l’actif net.” (Article 787 of the Civil Code) — but it triggers real duties. Your declaration must be followed by an inventaire (a formal inventory valuing every asset and every debt, item by item): “La déclaration est accompagnée ou suivie de l’inventaire de la succession qui comporte une estimation, article par article, des éléments de l’actif et du passif. L’inventaire est établi par un commissaire-priseur judiciaire, un huissier ou un notaire, selon les lois et règlements applicables à ces professions.” (Article 789 of the Civil Code). In practice the French notaire settling the estate organises this inventory with a commissaire de justice (the officer formerly known as huissier, combining bailiff and auctioneer functions) or a valuer, and you pay the costs out of the estate. From that point you administer the assets you have received under court-grade duties: “L’héritier est chargé d’administrer les biens qu’il recueille dans la succession. Il tient le compte de son administration, des créances qu’il paye et des actes qui engagent les biens recueillis ou qui affectent leur valeur.” (Article 800 of the Civil Code). You must keep accounts, pay creditors in the proper order, and answer any creditor who formally demands to know where the estate’s property is, within two months. Sell a car below value, pay one creditor out of turn, or mix estate money with your own, and you can be held personally liable for serious faults of administration. The English-language page of the French notaires summarises the trade-off accurately: acceptance up to the net assets limits payment of the estate debts to what the heir collects through the estate, while heirs remain bound by management duties (Notaires de France, French probate guide). Choose this route whenever the estate might be insolvent but could contain something worth saving — a house with equity, a life policy outside the estate, a claim for damages — because it preserves the upside while capping the downside.

Renunciation (renonciation) is the clean break: you take nothing and you owe nothing. “L’héritier qui renonce est censé n’avoir jamais été héritier.” (Article 805 of the Civil Code). You are deemed never to have been an heir: your share passes to your own children by representation or, failing that, swells the shares of your co-heirs or goes to the next degree, and creditors of the estate cannot touch you. One limit survives even renunciation, and British families divided between two countries should note it: “Le renonçant n’est pas tenu au paiement des dettes et charges de la succession. Toutefois, il est tenu à proportion de ses moyens au paiement des frais funéraires de l’ascendant ou du descendant à la succession duquel il renonce.” (Article 806 of the Civil Code). If you renounce your father’s or your child’s estate, you can still be asked to contribute to the funeral costs in proportion to your means. Renunciation is never presumed — silence alone is not a renunciation — and to bind third parties it must be formally filed: “La renonciation à une succession ne se présume pas. Pour être opposable aux tiers, la renonciation opérée par l’héritier universel ou à titre universel doit être adressée ou déposée au tribunal dans le ressort duquel la succession s’est ouverte ou faite devant notaire.” (Article 804 of the Civil Code). A letter to the notaire saying you “don’t want anything to do with it” is not a renunciation. The English service-public.fr page confirms the same three-way structure in plain terms: you may accept outright, accept up to the net assets, or relinquish, with different debt consequences and steps for each choice (service-public.fr, Accept or renounce the succession). The same page adds the practical consequences: under acceptance up to the net assets you do not pay debts beyond the value of the deceased’s property, while after the long-stop deadline you are treated as having renounced. Renunciation suits deeply insolvent estates, estates whose debts would cost more to administer than they are worth, and cases where your own children are better placed to take your share by representation — but think before you sign, because although a renunciation can be revoked while the ten-year period still runs and nobody else has taken the share, unwinding it is litigation, not paperwork.

B. How long you have to decide, and the summons that forces your hand

French law protects the heir who needs time to investigate, then punishes the heir who sleeps indefinitely. The starting point is a four-month breathing space: “L’héritier ne peut être contraint à opter avant l’expiration d’un délai de quatre mois à compter de l’ouverture de la succession. A l’expiration de ce délai, il peut être sommé, par acte extrajudiciaire, de prendre parti à l’initiative d’un créancier de la succession, d’un cohéritier, d’un héritier de rang subséquent ou de l’Etat.” (Article 771 of the Civil Code). The ouverture de la succession (the opening of the estate) is the date of death, so for four months no creditor, no sibling and no French state office can force you to choose. Use these months actively from Britain: instruct the notaire to list the accounts, ask the bank for statements, have the house valued, check the mortgage balance and the taxe foncière arrears with the local tax office, and ask whether the deceased stood as caution (guarantor) for anyone’s loan — guarantees are the classic hidden debt in French estates. If you are the next in line behind someone who renounces, your own four months run from the day you learn of that renunciation: the Code provides that the summons machinery applies to “l’héritier de rang subséquent appelé à succéder lorsque l’héritier de premier rang renonce à la succession”, with time running “à compter du jour où l’héritier subséquent a eu connaissance de la renonciation ou de l’indignité” (Article 774 of the Civil Code). A British grandchild who inherits because their parent renounced therefore gets a fresh clock, not the leftover of the parent’s.

After the four months, anyone with an interest — a bank owed money, a co-heir wanting to move on, the French state — can serve you with a sommation (a formal extrajudicial demand to take your option). From service you have two months to decide or to ask a judge for more time while you finish an inventory you have started or for other serious and legitimate reasons, and your request suspends the clock until the judge rules: “Dans les deux mois qui suivent la sommation, l’héritier doit prendre parti ou solliciter un délai supplémentaire auprès du juge lorsqu’il n’a pas été en mesure de clôturer l’inventaire commencé ou lorsqu’il justifie d’autres motifs sérieux et légitimes.” Miss that window and the sanction is brutal: “A défaut d’avoir pris parti à l’expiration du délai de deux mois ou du délai supplémentaire accordé, l’héritier est réputé acceptant pur et simple.” (Article 772 of the Civil Code). You become an outright acceptor by default, with unlimited liability for the debts, simply because you did not answer. For a British heir this is the single most dangerous rule in the chapter: a sommation sent by a French creditor to your last known French address, or served while you were between two homes, can mature into unlimited liability before you even understood what the document was. If you receive any French legal paper mentioning sommation d’opter or prendre parti, treat it as urgent, have it translated immediately, and instruct a lawyer before the two months expire. Conversely, where nobody serves you with anything and you have done nothing that counts as acceptance, your freedom lasts: “A défaut de sommation, l’héritier conserve la faculté d’opter” (Article 773 of the Civil Code). Without a summons, you keep your freedom to choose, provided you have done nothing counting as an heir’s act and you are not already deemed an outright acceptor under the concealment and administration rules. Doing nothing is therefore safe only on two conditions: nobody summons you, and you yourself do nothing that the law reads as acceptance — which leads directly to the traps below.

The absolute long-stop is ten years. “La faculté d’option se prescrit par dix ans à compter de l’ouverture de la succession. L’héritier qui n’a pas pris parti dans ce délai est réputé renonçant.” (Article 780 of the Civil Code). After ten years of silence you are deemed to have renounced, and the estate passes to those next entitled. Whatever you finally choose operates backwards: “L’option exercée a un effet rétroactif au jour de l’ouverture de la succession.” (Article 776 of the Civil Code). Renounce in year three and you are deemed never to have been heir since the death; accept up to the net assets in year two and your capped liability covers debts from day one. And if you renounced too hastily — because a sibling assured you the estate was drowning, then a forgotten life policy surfaced — the law offers a way back while time remains: “Tant que la prescription du droit d’accepter n’est pas acquise contre lui, l’héritier peut révoquer sa renonciation en acceptant la succession purement et simplement, si elle n’a pas été déjà acceptée par un autre héritier ou si l’Etat n’a pas déjà été envoyé en possession.” (Article 807 of the Civil Code). The revocation acts retroactively to the death, but it fails if another heir or the state has already taken the share — first come, first served.

Two traps convert an undecided British heir into an outright acceptor without any signature. The first is the acte d’héritier (an act only an acceptor would have the right to do). The Code defines it precisely: “L’acceptation pure et simple peut être expresse ou tacite. Elle est expresse quand le successible prend le titre ou la qualité d’héritier acceptant dans un acte authentique ou sous seing privé. Elle est tacite quand le successible saisi fait un acte qui suppose nécessairement son intention d’accepter et qu’il n’aurait droit de faire qu’en qualité d’héritier acceptant.” (Article 782 of the Civil Code). Selling the deceased’s car, cashing in an investment and spending the proceeds, granting a lease over the French house in your own name, or describing yourself as héritier acceptant in a private deed are textbook tacit acceptances. Ordinary protective steps are safe: “Les actes purement conservatoires ou de surveillance et les actes d’administration provisoire peuvent être accomplis sans emporter acceptation de la succession, si le successible n’y a pas pris le titre ou la qualité d’héritier.” (Article 784 of the Civil Code). Paying the buildings insurance, changing the locks, arranging urgent roof repairs, or asking the notaire for information do not accept the estate — provided you never call yourself heir in writing. The Cour de cassation polices this boundary in both directions. In one case it recalled that acceptance is never presumed and that it is for the estate’s creditor to prove every condition allowing it to claim payment from the heir: “l’acceptation d’une succession ne se présumant pas, c’est au créancier héréditaire d’établir que l’ensemble des conditions de nature à lui permettre de réclamer paiement à l’héritier sont réunies” (Cour de cassation, First Civil Chamber, 19 September 2019, appeal no. 18-18.433, official decision). In the same ruling it quashed an appeal court that had let a creditor pursue a man simply because he was saisi (automatically vested) with the estate: the heir, the Court held, “saisi de plein droit des biens, droits et actions de Q… X…, pouvait être poursuivi par les créanciers de la succession, sauf à lui à renoncer à celle-ci”. Being automatically vested with the estate’s property at death — which Article 724 organises by stating “Les héritiers désignés par la loi sont saisis de plein droit des biens, droits et actions du défunt.” (Article 724 of the Civil Code) — does not stop you from renouncing afterwards. Creditors know this, which is why they serve a sommation: it forces you off the fence.

The second trap is concealment, and it is punished with exceptional severity. The heir “qui a recelé des biens ou des droits d’une succession ou dissimulé l’existence d’un cohéritier est réputé accepter purement et simplement la succession, nonobstant toute renonciation ou acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net” (Article 778 of the Civil Code). Empty the French current account into your own before the inventory, “forget” a securities portfolio when the notaire asks for a full picture, or hide a half-sibling’s existence, and the law deems you an outright acceptor despite any renunciation you filed — with unlimited liability and no share in what you hid. The Cour de cassation confirmed the full logic under the older wording, still the governing principle: “les héritiers qui auraient diverti ou recelé des effets d’une succession sont déchus de la faculté d’y renoncer ; ils demeurent héritiers purs et simples, nonobstant leur renonciation, sans pouvoir prétendre aucune part dans les objets divertis ou recelés.” (Cour de cassation, First Civil Chamber, 2 September 2020, appeal no. 19-15.955, official decision). For heirs administering from Britain the warning is practical: never move funds “to keep them safe”, never instruct a French bank to close an account and transfer the balance to you personally before your option is formally recorded, and copy the notaire on everything. Transparency is not courtesy here; it is the condition of keeping your choice.

II. Debts, paperwork and challenges for the heir dealing from Britain

A. Filing your choice from London: declarations, inventory and the notaire

Brexit changed nothing about the doors you must walk through; it only made the corridor longer. Since 1 January 2021 British citizens are third-country nationals in France, so you will likely need a visa to spend time there sorting the estate, your British passport no longer gives you a right to remain while the notaire works, and every document you sign from London must cross the Channel in a form the French greffe (the court registry) accepts. Start by organising your status in France itself: the arrival formalities — which long-stay visa leads to which carte de séjour (residence permit), and how to challenge a refusal — are set out in the British newcomer’s pillar guide (British newcomer visa and residence permit guide). Once you can travel and stay lawfully, the succession itself follows French procedural rails that apply identically to French and British heirs.

Renunciation is filed, not posted casually. As seen above, it must be addressed or lodged at the court of the place where the estate opened, or made before a notaire, and the notaire who receives it forwards a copy to the court within the month (Article 804 of the Civil Code). In practice a British heir has two workable routes. The first is to see a French notaire — ideally the one already settling the estate, who holds the file — and sign the renunciation there during a trip to France; the notaire handles registration and national publication. The second is to sign before an English solicitor or notary public and have the deed legalised for use in France, then sent to the competent greffe or to the French notaire for deposit. Since Brexit, the United Kingdom is no longer covered by the EU instruments that once simplified cross-border legalisation, so check with the notaire in advance whether an apostille (the Hague Convention authentication stamp) on your English deed will satisfy the greffe, and have every English document translated by a traducteur assermenté (a sworn translator registered with a French court of appeal). Keep proof of filing: the declaration is registered and nationally published, and only that registration makes your renunciation binding on creditors who were not parties to your family arrangements.

Acceptance up to the net assets follows a parallel track with heavier follow-through. The declaration “doit être faite au greffe du tribunal judiciaire dans le ressort duquel la succession est ouverte ou devant notaire”, it must elect a single address for service, and “Le domicile doit être situé en France.” (Article 788 of the Civil Code). Read that last sentence twice if you live in Britain: your elected domicile — where creditors must serve every demand — must be in France, typically the office of the notaire settling the estate or your French lawyer’s chambers. Electing your Manchester address is void, and creditors who cannot serve you properly can later dispute your whole procedure. Once declared, commission the inventory without delay, because the item-by-item valuation of assets and liabilities frames everything that follows: the price at which the house enters the accounts, the balance of each loan, the arrears of tax, the value of the furniture. The service-public.fr guide describes the sequence for non-lawyers: file the declaration on plain paper or the official form, send it to the court or the notaire, then have a commissioner of justice or a notary draw up the inventory valuing the assets and debts of the deceased (service-public.fr, Accept or renounce the succession). From London, give the notaire a complete documentary pack early — property titles, bank statements, savings books, loan agreements, tax notices, invoices, and a list of gifts, sales or company moves the deceased made in recent years — because the notaires’ own guide asks heirs to send every supporting document, from property titles and bank statements to savings books and invoices, so the assets and liabilities can be assessed (Notaires de France, French probate guide). An inventory built on half a file undervalues debts, and undervalued debts become your personal problem if your procedure later fails.

Two related files often run alongside the debts question and deserve early attention. First, the English-law dimension: many British owners of French houses made an English will choosing English law under the EU Succession Regulation, and the interaction of that choice with French forced-heirship rules decides who the heirs even are before anyone discusses debts — the mechanics are explained in the guide to choosing English law for a French house (British will and French house guide). Second, the executor dimension: where an English grant of probate exists, getting it recognised by the French notaire through a European Certificate of Succession or equivalent proof conditions the whole timetable. Neither file changes the three options described here, but both change who exercises them and on what share — so align the will, the probate and the debts advice before anyone signs anything.

B. Who pays the mortgage, the taxes and the hidden debts, and how to challenge the bill

Once your option is fixed, the estate’s liabilities fall into a practical order that every British heir should understand before the notaire‘s first statement of account arrives. Secured lenders come first in practice: the bank that holds the hypothèque (the registered mortgage over the French house) is paid out of the sale price before anyone else touches a euro, and if you accepted outright and the sale does not cover the loan, the bank follows you for the shortfall. Next come the privileged public creditors — the tax administration for income tax, taxe foncière and any penalties, the URSSAF-equivalent bodies for a self-employed deceased, the care home or hospital for unpaid fees — then ordinary unsecured creditors such as overdrafts, consumer credit and suppliers. Funeral costs sit apart, as seen, because even a renouncing child or parent contributes in proportion to their means (Article 806 of the Civil Code). If you accepted up to the net assets, each creditor is paid out of the estate in its proper rank, and the unpaid balance dies with the estate rather than following you to Britain — provided your inventory was sincere and your administration blameless. If you renounced, the creditors divide what the remaining heirs or the next degree take, and your British assets are untouched. If you accepted outright, there is no ranking that protects you: every creditor, secured or not, holds you personally for the whole debt, and interest continues to run against you until payment.

Hidden debts are where British estates in France most often explode, and the law offers three shields if you act methodically. The first shield is the inventory itself: a debt omitted from a properly conducted inventory, which you had legitimate reasons not to know, founds the Article 786 application for partial discharge described above — but only within five months of discovery and only where payment would seriously damage your personal wealth, so diary the date you learn of each new claim and instruct counsel at once rather than paying quietly. The second shield is the administration regime of acceptance up to the net assets: creditors must declare and prove their claims against the estate, they are paid in rank, and a creditor who missed the procedure cannot rewrite it against your personal assets. The third shield is procedural challenge. French banks and tax offices make mistakes that survive translation: a mortgage statement that mixes the deceased’s loan with a third party’s, a taxe foncière bill issued after the sale of the house, penalties computed on a wrong base, a consumer-credit balance that ignores the borrower’s death insurance (assurance emprunteur, the policy that repays the loan on death). Demand the full contractual chain for every large claim — the signed loan offer, the insurance certificate, the statements from death to the claim — and check whether a death insurance policy extinguishes the very debt being pursued. Where the notaire‘s draft settlement (projet de règlement) includes a debt you dispute, refuse to sign the partage (the partition deed) incorporating it, state your objection in writing with evidence, and, if the notaire maintains the item, bring the dispute before the tribunal judiciaire (the ordinary civil court) of the place where the estate opened. Do not let a sibling pressure you into signing “to get it over with”: a signed partage that lists a debt as agreed is extremely hard to reopen later.

Three final cautions close the circle for heirs living in Britain. First, mind the French tax calendar running beside the civil option: the estate’s declaration for French inheritance purposes follows its own six- or twelve-month timetable depending on where the death occurred, with interest and penalties for late filing that enlarge the very debts you are trying to cap — so synchronise your civil option with the fiscal filing through the same notaire rather than treating them as separate errands. Second, never confuse the English and French closures: an English grant of probate, a deed of renunciation signed in England, or a distribution agreed among siblings in a London solicitor’s office has no effect in France until it passes through the French forms — the greffe filing or notaire deed, the French inventory, the French publication. Third, keep the paper trail immaculate: every transfer from a French account should be ordered in writing by the notaire within the recorded procedure, every payment to a creditor should reference the estate file number, and no heir should hold estate money in a personal account “temporarily”. The Cour de cassation’s concealment ruling quoted above shows where informality leads — deemed outright acceptance, unlimited liability, and exclusion from the hidden assets — and its lesson for the cross-Channel heir is simple: in a French estate with debts, the heir who writes everything down keeps their options, and the heir who moves money first loses them.

Conclusion

A French estate with debts offers the British heir three doors and no corridor between them: outright acceptance with unlimited liability, acceptance up to the net assets with a formal inventory and supervised administration, or renunciation with neither assets nor debts beyond a contribution to funeral costs. The four-month reflection period, the two-month summons trap, and the ten-year long-stop set the tempo; tacit acceptance and concealment punish haste and opacity. For the heir in Britain, the winning sequence is almost always the same: secure your right to travel and stay, commission a full inventory through the French notaire before signing anything, file the protective option at the greffe or before the notaire with a French address for service, verify every claimed debt document by document, and challenge in writing what does not add up before the partition is signed. Debts do not cross the Channel by themselves — only your signature brings them over.