You have found the house in the Dordogne, the children love the village school, and the French estate agent has just asked you a question you did not expect: do you want to buy en nom propre, in your own names, or through a SCI? A SCI (société civile immobilière, a non-trading property company) is the vehicle through which a huge proportion of French families own their homes, and British buyers are routinely advised to copy them. Sometimes that advice is sound. Sometimes it creates a tax and succession tangle that costs the family far more than the problem it was supposed to solve. Since Brexit, the question has gained an extra layer: you are now third-country nationals, your residence rights depend on visas and cartes de séjour (residence permits) examined in our arrival guide for British newcomers, and every French tax and succession rule applies to you without the European shortcuts you once enjoyed. This guide explains, in plain English, what a family SCI does for a British household with a French home, how the French taxman looks through it, how it interacts with your English will, and what to do when a co-owner, a manager or the tax office blocks you.

I. What a family SCI does for a British household with a French home

Start with the basic picture. A SCI is a company whose purpose is civil, not commercial: it owns and manages property rather than trading. The provisions of the Civil Code chapter on civil companies apply to every SCI, because Article 1845 of the Civil Code gives civil character to every company to which the law attributes no other character by reason of form, nature or object: « Ont le caractère civil toutes les sociétés auxquelles la loi n’attribue pas un autre caractère à raison de leur forme, de leur nature, ou de leur objet. » The family does not own the house directly; each member owns parts sociales (shares) in the company, and the company owns the house. That single layer of separation is the source of every advantage and every drawback that follows: it makes it easy to split ownership between parents and children, to organise who decides what, and to pass the property on gradually, but it also means that selling “the house” really means selling or valuing shares, and that family disagreements play out under company law rather than around the kitchen table.

A. Setting up and running the family SCI: shares, manager and family votes

Creating the SCI means drafting statuts (articles of association), registering the company, and appointing a gérant (manager). The manager can be an associate or an outsider, and Article 1846 of the Civil Code allows management by one or more persons, associates or outsiders, appointed in the articles, by separate instrument or by collective decision: « La société est gérée par une ou plusieurs personnes, associées ou non ». In a British family this is usually one or both parents, and the practical point is immediate: whoever holds the management signature can sign the insurance, order the roof repairs and open the bank account, while the others remain owners without day-to-day powers. Draft the management clause with care, because it also decides how the manager can be replaced and what happens if the manager dies or loses capacity, which matters enormously when the parents age.

Day-to-day decisions belong to the manager, but important ones belong to the associates collectively. under Article 1852 of the Civil Code, decisions beyond the manager’s powers follow the articles or, failing that, require unanimity: « Les décisions qui excèdent les pouvoirs reconnus aux gérants sont prises selon les dispositions statutaires ou, en l’absence de telles dispositions, à l’unanimité des associés. » Selling the house, borrowing against it or changing the company’s purpose will therefore normally require a collective vote, and if your statuts are silent, unanimity. For a British couple this is usually unproblematic; add two adult children with partners of their own, and unanimity can become a veto in waiting. The remedy is drafting: majority thresholds for defined categories of decisions, a casting vote, or a buy-out clause can be written into the statuts on day one, when everyone still likes each other.

One feature of French company law is particularly useful for British parents: the split between usufruit (a life interest, the right to use the property and take its income) and nue-propriété (the bare ownership of the capital). Shares in the SCI can be split this way, so the parents keep the income and the vote on income decisions while the children hold the future capital. Article 1844 of the Civil Code organises the arrangement precisely: both bare owner and life tenant take part in collective decisions, and « Le droit de vote appartient au nu-propriétaire, sauf pour les décisions concernant l’affectation des bénéfices, où il est réservé à l’usufruitier. » Read that twice before you sign anything, because it answers the question every British family asks: who votes on what when Mum and Dad keep the income and the children own the capital. The default answer is that the children vote on most things and the parents vote on what happens to the profits, unless the statuts rearrange it. If the family wants the parents to keep control of everything during their lifetime, that must be written expressly; silence gives the children more power than most parents expect.

Finally, every associate has a weapon of last resort against a dysfunctional company: the courts can dissolve it. Article 1844-7 of the Civil Code lists the ways a company ends, including « Par la dissolution anticipée prononcée par le tribunal à la demande d’un associé pour justes motifs, notamment en cas d’inexécution de ses obligations par un associé, ou de mésentente entre associés paralysant le fonctionnement de la société ». The case law sets the bar high. In a 2011 ruling on a SCI formed by an unmarried couple whose relationship had collapsed, the Court of Cassation upheld judges who had « exactement retenu que la mésentente existant entre les associés et par suite la disparition de l’affectio societatis ne pouvaient constituer un juste motif de dissolution qu’à la condition de se traduire par une paralysie du fonctionnement de la société » (Cass. 3rd civ., 16 March 2011, No. 10-15.459). Personal hatred is not enough; you must show the machinery has seized up. Where the machinery genuinely has seized up, judges do act: in February 2025 the Bobigny court, noting that « il ressort des allégations concordantes des parties et des pièces produites que le dysfonctionnement est avéré et a pour cause leur mésentente », granted the matching requests for dissolution and appointed a liquidator (TJ Bobigny, 20 Feb. 2025, No. 23/09918). The lesson for British families is practical rather than theoretical: keep the accounts, the meetings and the tax filings visibly functioning even while you argue, and if you are the one seeking dissolution, collect the paper trail showing that nothing can any longer be decided or paid.

B. Selling, giving or leaving the SCI: buyer approval, withdrawal and the price of exit

The SCI truly shows its character when someone wants out. Unlike shares in a large company, SCI shares cannot simply be sold to whoever offers the best price. the starting rule in Article 1861 of the Civil Code is blunt: « Les parts sociales ne peuvent être cédées qu’avec l’agrément de tous les associés. » The same article lets the statuts soften that unanimity into a defined majority, delegate approval to the managers, or exempt transfers to existing associates, and it provides that « Sauf dispositions contraires des statuts, ne sont pas soumises à agrément les cessions consenties à des ascendants ou descendants du cédant. » For a British family this default is usually exactly what you want: a child can receive shares from a parent without a family vote, while an outsider buyer, perhaps the new partner of a divorced child, can be kept out. But the same clause can trap you: if your daughter divorces and the family refuses to approve her ex-husband as a buyer for her shares, the family must either find another buyer or buy the shares itself, because a refusal cannot leave the departing associate locked in without a way out. Check what your statuts say about the buy-back obligation and the valuation method before the crisis arrives, not after.

Where no buyer can be agreed, the law offers an individual exit route: withdrawal (retrait). under Article 1869 of the Civil Code, an associate may leave the company on the conditions set in the articles or, failing that, with the unanimous consent of the others, and « Ce retrait peut également être autorisé pour justes motifs par une décision de justice. » The departing associate is entitled to repayment of the share value, fixed by agreement or, failing that, by independent expert valuation under Article 1843-4. The courts police this right jealously. In a 2016 case a doctor who had announced his withdrawal from a medical-centre SCI was told by a unanimous meeting that his exit would take effect only on the day the company’s buildings were sold; the Court of Cassation quashed the appeal decision, ruling that « Qu’en statuant ainsi, par des motifs qui ne suffisent pas à établir le caractère effectif du droit au retrait de M. V…, la cour d’appel n’a pas donné de base légale à sa décision » (Cass. 3rd civ., 29 Sept. 2016, No. 15-18.396). A family majority cannot therefore park a departing member indefinitely by making the exit conditional on a future sale, however reasonable that sounds around the table. If you are the one being blocked, the route is a court application for authorised withdrawal on legitimate grounds, with an independent expert fixing the share value if no agreement is reached; if you are the family staying in, the protection is a well-drafted buy-back and valuation clause that lets you stagger payments rather than face a sudden expert figure.

Two further exit scenarios deserve a line each, because British families encounter both. First, bankruptcy: if one associate suffers personal insolvency proceedings, Article 1860 of the Civil Code provides for repayment of that associate’s shares under the same expert valuation, and the associate loses membership, unless the others unanimously decide on early dissolution. A child’s business failure in England can therefore echo directly inside the French family company. Second, the manager: a gérant who refuses to call meetings, hides the accounts or signs dubious contracts can be removed by the associates and, where the majority protects him, by the courts for lawful cause, with damages available if the removal itself was abusive. The pattern across all these remedies is the same: French company law distrusts lock-ins, so every wall in the statuts, approval clauses, unanimity rules, management entrenchment, has a judicial door built into it. The family that drafts its statuts as if the doors did not exist is the family that pays barristers to walk through them.

A final practical note on geography, since many British SCI owners cluster around Paris. Nothing in the rules above changes because your flat is in the 7th arrondissement rather than the Lot: the competent court is the tribunal judiciaire (the ordinary civil court) of the place where the company has its registered office, and Paris filings move no faster than provincial ones. What does change in Paris is the price of getting the valuation wrong, because an expert valuation of shares in a company holding a Paris flat magnifies every percentage point of dispute. Settle the valuation method in the statuts while everyone is still friendly; it is the cheapest clause you will ever draft.

II. How French tax and succession law treat your SCI shares

A. Income tax, capital gains and the non-resident levy: who really pays

Here comes the surprise that undoes many British buyers: for tax purposes, the French system largely pretends your SCI does not exist. The default regime is fiscal transparency (translucidité fiscale), meaning the rental income and gains are taxed directly in the hands of the associates as if each had received their slice. Article 1655 ter of the General Tax Code deems property companies of this kind transparent: « les sociétés qui ont, 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 en propriété ou en jouissance, soit la gestion de ces immeubles ou groupes d’immeubles ainsi divisés, soit la location pour le compte d’un ou plusieurs des membres de la société de tout ou partie des immeubles ou fractions d’immeubles appartenant à chacun de ces membres, sont réputées, quelle que soit leur forme juridique, ne pas avoir de personnalité distincte de celle de leurs membres pour l’application des impôts directs », so that each associate is taxed directly on their slice of the company’s income. The companion rule in Article 8 of the General Tax Code confirms the mechanism for partnerships generally: absent an election for the corporate regime, each associate is « personnellement soumis à l’impôt sur le revenu pour la part de bénéfices sociaux correspondant à leurs droits dans la société ». Concretely, if your family SCI lets out a studio in Lyon, each British-resident associate declares their slice of the rent on a French tax return and pays French tax on it, exactly as if they owned the studio directly. The SCI can elect for corporation tax (impôt sur les sociétés), which sometimes suits a letting strategy aimed at reinvestment, but the election is sticky, it changes the treatment of later sales, and it should never be made without modelling both the French and the British tax consequences first.

Brexit changed nothing about that French tax charge, but it changed the paperwork and the rates around it. Rental income from French property has always been taxable in France, and the France–UK double tax treaty confirms the principle: under Article 6 of the 2008 Convention France may tax income from French-situated immovable property, with the meaning of that property taken from French law (2008 UK–France Double Taxation Convention, GOV.UK). France taxes the French-source rent first; Britain then relieves the same income against UK tax under the treaty mechanics, so the same pound of rent is not taxed twice. What Brexit did remove is the European framework that once softened several French charges for EU-resident owners, including the former exemption mechanics around social charges (prélèvements sociaux) on rental income and gains. British-resident associates now pay the full set of French charges on their transparent slice, file the French returns, and must keep the treaty relief paperwork tight on the UK side with HM Revenue & Customs. If the French tax office (service des impôts des particuliers) disputes your return, the challenge route is the standard one: an administrative claim (réclamation) first, then the administrative court (tribunal administratif), within the statutory time limits printed on your assessment (avis d’imposition). Never ignore a French tax notice because you live in Britain; the recovery machinery reaches across the Channel.

Selling is where the SCI structure bites hardest, and where British families most often discover the difference between selling a house and selling shares. If the SCI sells the house itself, the gain is computed under the property regime, with the familiar taper relief for length of ownership; if instead you sell your shares to another family member or an outsider, the price is the share value, and the company’s latent gain stays inside for later. For associates who live in Britain, a specific levy looms over direct and indirect disposals alike: for non-resident sellers, Article 244 bis A of the General Tax Code provides that qualifying French-source gains « sont soumises à un prélèvement selon les taux fixés au III bis », subject to international treaties. Before any sale, map the three questions in order: who sells (the company or the associates), where each seller lives for tax purposes, and what the treaty allocates to France. Families that answer them in that order routinely save tens of thousands of euros; families that sign the buyer’s offer first and ask afterwards fund the Treasury instead.

B. Wills, the English-law choice and the forced share: protecting the children and the surviving spouse

Succession is the reason most British families create the SCI, and the area where English instincts mislead most. Under French law, certain heirs, principally children, are réservataires (forced heirs): Article 912 of the Civil Code defines the réserve héréditaire: « 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. » Whatever is not reserved, the quotité disponible (disposable portion), is the part the deceased could give away freely. An English will leaving everything to the surviving spouse works perfectly for a house in Kent; for SCI shares falling under French succession law, children can claw back (action en réduction) lifetime gifts and legacies that eat into their reserve. The SCI softens the mechanics, because shares divide far more easily than a farmhouse, and parents can give shares gradually while keeping the usufruit described above, but it does not remove the reserve itself.

The counterweight, and every British family with a French home should know it, is the choice of law (professio juris) allowed by the EU Succession Regulation No. 650/2012: a person may choose the law of their nationality to govern their whole estate, which for a British national means English law, under which owners keep wide latitude to dispose of their estate by will. The choice must be made expressly in a will, it must be valid, and it interacts with French private international law in ways that need clause-by-clause drafting, particularly where the family also holds English assets or where a surviving spouse needs protection beyond what English intestacy would give. Our dedicated guide to British wills and French houses walks through that choice in detail, and it should be read alongside this article before anyone signs either document. The practical sequence is fixed: first decide the succession law and write the will, then shape the SCI shareholding to fit the will, never the reverse. Families that create the company first and discover the will afterwards often find the two documents pulling in opposite directions, with the children holding shares the will never contemplated.

Where succession and company law collide, the agrément clause from Part I returns in a new costume. When an associate dies, their shares pass to their heirs, but the surviving associates may be entitled to approve the newcomers or buy them out under the statuts, which means the heir of a British associate can inherit value without necessarily inheriting a seat at the table. Draft the transmission clause deliberately: name who is pre-approved (typically children), set the buy-back price method (independent expert under Article 1843-4 by default), and fix payment deadlines the company can actually meet. And remember the bankruptcy echo from Part I: an heir who accepts an indebted estate outright inherits the debts with it, so the three classic options of French succession law, outright acceptance, acceptance up to the net assets (acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net), or renunciation, should be weighed with the SCI shares valued realistically, not sentimentally.

Conclusion

A family SCI is neither a magic shield nor a tax trap with a French accent; it is a precision instrument that rewards families who draft for disagreement and punishes those who draft for harmony. For a British household settling in France after Brexit, the decision tree runs in this order: confirm your residence position first, because owners without stable status build on sand; choose your succession law and write the will second, because the company must serve the estate plan and not contradict it; draft the statuts third, with explicit clauses on management, voting in usufruit, approval of newcomers, withdrawal, valuation and death; and model the tax in both countries fourth, remembering that France taxes the transparent slice and the treaty prevents double taxation rather than single taxation. At every fork, the French system offers the same bargain it has offered since 1978: strong default protections for the family member who stays, and a judicial door for the one who is locked in. Walk through the drafting door now, while everyone is still talking, and you will never need the courtroom one.