Your mother lived in Surrey, owned a stone house near Sarlat, and named you executor in her English will. After the funeral you obtain the grant of probate in London, fly to France with the sealed document, and present it to the local notaire (the French public officer who settles estates) and to her French bank. Neither is impressed. The bank asks for a French tax registration receipt you have never heard of. The notaire asks whether the will has been registered with the French tax office, whether English law really governs the house, and what powers an English executor actually holds on French soil. Weeks pass, the house insurance needs renewing, and the funds stay frozen.

This is the normal experience of a British executor dealing with French assets since Brexit, and it surprises even well-organised families. In England and Wales, the executor (strictly, the personal representative) derives authority from the grant of probate and administers the whole estate. In France, death opens a different machinery: the heirs designated by law take the estate automatically, a notaire establishes who inherits through formal instruments, foreign wills must pass through French tax registration before they can be enforced on French property, and an English grant of probate, on its own, proves very little to a French bank or land registry. The bridge between the two systems exists, but it is a specific one: the European Certificate of Succession (certificat successoral européen), a probate-evidence document created by the European Union Succession Regulation, combined where needed with French instruments such as the acte de notoriété (the notarial deed that records who the heirs are).

This guide explains, for a British executor or administrator, how to get recognised in France, what your powers really are once recognised, how to deal with debts and French death taxes, and what to do when a bank, a notaire or a family member blocks the file. French terms are explained at first use. The companion pillar on choosing English law for a French house and protecting children covers the will-drafting side; this article covers the administration side, after death has occurred.

I. Getting recognised in France: the grant of probate is not enough

A. Why French banks and registries ask for more than the English grant

An English grant of probate is a court order of a country that is now outside the European Union, and France has no general mechanism that gives it automatic effect. A French bank that releases several hundred thousand euros on the strength of a document its legal department cannot verify takes a liability risk, and the French land publicity service (service de publicité foncière, the registry that records who owns immovable property) will not transfer a house on the basis of a foreign court paper it cannot read in its own formal language. What French institutions understand is either a French instrument or a European one. The European instrument is the European Certificate of Succession, created by Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 of 4 July 2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law and the European Certificate of Succession, whose Articles 62 to 73 set out a standard document for use by heirs, legatees with direct rights and executors or administrators who need to establish their status in another Member State. Because the United Kingdom never took part in that Regulation and has now left the Union entirely, a British executor cannot obtain the Certificate from a UK authority; in practice it is applied for in the Member State whose courts handle the succession, most often France itself through the notaire or the court, and it circulates with standard effects across the Union.

The decisive French lesson about this Certificate was given by the First Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation, France’s supreme court for civil matters) on 13 April 2022, in a case that every executor should know. A widow holding a European Certificate of Succession issued by the German authorities asked a French bank to release the estate’s cash, and the bank refused until the foreign will was registered with the French tax administration. The Court approved the bank’s position and stated plainly that le certificat successoral européen avait une efficacité probatoire mais ne constituait pas un titre exécutoire, which means that the Certificate has evidential value but is not an enforcement order: it certifies who the heir is and what their rights are, but it does not sweep away every formality needed to exercise those rights. The full decision is published as Cass. Civ. 1re, 13 April 2022, No 20-23.530.

The formality at stake in that case is one of the oldest traps for Anglo-Saxon families, and it applies to wills, not only to Certificates. Article 1000 of the Civil Code (Code civil) provides that Les testaments faits en pays étranger ne pourront être exécutés sur les biens situés en France qu’après avoir été enregistrés au bureau du domicile du testateur, s’il en a conservé un, sinon au bureau de son dernier domicile connu en France ; et, dans le cas où le testament contiendrait des dispositions d’immeubles qui y seraient situés, il devra être, en outre, enregistré au bureau de la situation de ces immeubles, sans qu’il puisse être exigé un double droit. The tax mirror of that rule sits in Article 655 of the General Tax Code (Code général des impôts), which states that Les testaments faits en pays étrangers ne peuvent être exécutés sur les biens situés en France, qu’après avoir été enregistrés au service des impôts du domicile du testateur, s’il en a conservé un, sinon à celui de son dernier domicile connu en France ; et dans le cas où le testament contient des dispositions d’immeubles qui y sont situés, il doit être, en outre, enregistré au service des impôts de la situation de ces immeubles, sans que les pénalités prévues aux articles 1727 et suivants soient applicables. Registration costs a fixed duty (125 euros at the date of the decision) and produces the receipt the bank is entitled to demand.

The Court of Cassation went further and closed the argument executors most want to make, namely that European law forbids France from asking for anything at all once the Certificate is produced. It held that l’exigence d’enregistrement de tout testament établi à l’étranger, qui ne remettait pas en cause l’efficacité probatoire du certificat successoral européen et ne constituait pas une condition d’exécution des testaments prohibée par le Règlement, ne portait pas atteinte au principe d’application directe du règlement ni ne le privait de son effet utile. In plain terms, the registration requirement questions neither the evidential value of the Certificate nor the direct application of European law; it is a fiscal formality, and fiscal matters are expressly outside the Regulation’s scope. An executor who arrives with only the English grant, or even with a foreign-issued Certificate but no tax registration receipt, should therefore expect the bank’s refusal to be upheld by a French court. The practical order of business is the reverse of the English instinct: first get the foreign will registered for tax, then present the Certificate or the French title together with the receipt, and only then demand the funds.

Alongside the Certificate, the working document of every French file is the acte de notoriété, the deed by which a notaire records, on the basis of civil-status documents and family testimony, who the deceased’s heirs are and in what proportions. French law is deliberately flexible about proof: Article 730 of the Civil Code states that La preuve de la qualité d’héritier s’établit par tous moyens. Il n’est pas dérogé aux dispositions ni aux usages concernant la délivrance de certificats de propriété ou d’hérédité par des autorités judiciaires ou administratives. In a franco-British file, the notaire will typically combine the English death certificate with apostille, the registered will, sworn translations, and the family record evidence into this deed. Where the deceased chose English law in the will (the professio juris, the choice-of-law clause examined in our pillar article), the notaire applies it to the movable assets and, for the French house, checks it against the forced-heirship corrective described in Part II. The key references for this section are Article 1000 of the Civil Code, Article 655 of the General Tax Code and Article 730 of the Civil Code; the official succession portal summarises the settlement steps at service-public.fr, Règlement d’une succession, and the English side of the probate process is described at GOV.UK, Applying for probate.

B. Your powers as executor on French soil: narrower than in England

Many British executors assume that the title of executor travels with them. It does not, or at least not with the same content. Under English law the personal representative owns the estate assets temporarily, pays debts, and distributes. Under French law, Article 724 of the Civil Code provides that Les héritiers désignés par la loi sont saisis de plein droit des biens, droits et actions du défunt. Les légataires et donataires universels sont saisis dans les conditions prévues au titre II du présent livre. A leur défaut, la succession est acquise à l’Etat, qui doit se faire envoyer en possession. Saisine means automatic legal possession: the heirs step into the deceased’s shoes by operation of law at the instant of death, without asking anyone’s permission. The executor named in an English will is therefore never the owner of the French assets; at most, the executor is a manager with defined statutory powers, and the heirs remain the persons entitled to the property.

French law does recognise the exécuteur testamentaire (the testamentary executor), and an English appointment can in principle be received into this role, but its powers are fenced. Article 1025 of the Civil Code states that Le testateur peut nommer un ou plusieurs exécuteurs testamentaires jouissant de la pleine capacité civile pour veiller ou procéder à l’exécution de ses volontés. L’exécuteur testamentaire qui a accepté sa mission est tenu de l’accomplir. Les pouvoirs de l’exécuteur testamentaire ne sont pas transmissibles à cause de mort. Article 1029 adds the operational detail: L’exécuteur testamentaire prend les mesures conservatoires utiles à la bonne exécution du testament. Il peut faire procéder, dans les formes prévues à l’article 789 , à l’inventaire de la succession en présence ou non des héritiers, après les avoir dûment appelés. Il peut provoquer la vente du mobilier à défaut de liquidités suffisantes pour acquitter les dettes urgentes de la succession. Conservatory measures, an inventory, selling furniture to pay urgent debts: this is a supervisory mission, not the English model of full administration. The mission can also be ended by a court, since Article 1026 provides that the executor may be discharged for serious reasons, and it ends automatically; it never passes to the executor’s own heirs.

Where the will makes you universal legatee (légataire universel, the person left the whole estate) rather than mere executor, a further French step may be needed: l’envoi en possession, the court order putting the legatee into possession. When there are no forced heirs, Article 1006 of the Civil Code provides that Lorsqu’au décès du testateur il n’y aura pas d’héritiers auxquels une quotité de ses biens soit réservée par la loi, le légataire universel sera saisi de plein droit par la mort du testateur, sans être tenu de demander la délivrance. But where protected heirs exist, possession must be requested, and the court does not rubber-stamp. In a 1996 ruling the Court of Cassation held that même en l’absence de toute contestation, le président du Tribunal ne doit pas se borner à examiner la régularité extérieure et matérielle du testament, mais déterminer également s’il renferme ou non un legs universel, and approved a refusal of the order where the intention to benefit the claimant did not emerge clearly from the wording (see Cass. Civ. 1re, 6 March 1996, No 94-12.406). A vaguely worded English will can therefore stall at this gate, which is another reason to have the will reviewed for its French effects during lifetime, as explained in our pillar on English-law wills covering French houses.

Finally, where nobody can act because the heirs quarrel, block access, or simply do nothing, French law offers the mandataire successoral (the court-appointed estate administrator). Article 813-1 of the Civil Code provides that Le juge peut désigner toute personne qualifiée, physique ou morale, en qualité de mandataire successoral, à l’effet d’administrer provisoirement la succession en raison de l’inertie, de la carence ou de la faute d’un ou de plusieurs héritiers dans cette administration, de leur mésentente, d’une opposition d’intérêts entre eux ou de la complexité de la situation successorale. The importance of this tool in cross-border cases was underlined when the Court of Cassation referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union the question of which court may appoint such an administrator when the deceased’s habitual residence and the seised court do not coincide (see Cass. Civ. 1re, 18 November 2020, No 19-15.438, referral on Articles 4, 10 and 15 of the Succession Regulation). For a British executor frozen out by co-heirs in France, asking the judicial court (tribunal judiciaire) for this appointment is often more effective than arguing about English powers. The statutory anchors of this section are Article 724, Article 1025, Article 1029, Article 1006 and Article 813-1 of the Civil Code, with the Succession Regulation’s jurisdiction rules in Regulation (EU) No 650/2012.

II. Administering the French estate: debts, taxes and blocked files

A. Debts first: the acceptance choice that conditions everything

Before distributing a euro, the executor must know who answers for the debts, because French law gives each heir a choice with sharp consequences, and the English grant says nothing about it. Article 785 of the Civil Code warns 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. Pure and simple acceptance (acceptation pure et simple) means unlimited liability for the deceased’s debts, including debts the heir did not know about. The protective alternative is acceptance up to the net assets (acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net, formerly called acceptance under benefit of inventory), which caps liability at what the estate contains, at the price of a formal inventory procedure. Article 786 underlines that the choice is sticky: L’héritier acceptant purement et simplement ne peut plus renoncer à la succession ni l’accepter à concurrence de l’actif net. The article then opens one narrow safety valve for a debt the heir had legitimate reasons not to know, on which a court application must be brought within five months of discovering it.

For a British family this choice is the hinge of the whole administration. French mortgages, outstanding taxe foncière (the local property tax), income tax balances, care-home arrears and business guarantees all follow the heir who accepts. An executor who distributes to beneficiaries before the debts are mapped can face personal claims from unpaid creditors and from heirs called on to pay more than their share. The careful sequence is therefore: have the notaire draw up the inventory, publish for creditors where appropriate, advise each heir in writing of the two acceptance routes and their deadlines, and move money only once acceptances are recorded. Heirs who discover a French property with an underwater mortgage are usually best advised toward acceptance up to the net assets or renunciation (renonciation), both of which require formal steps before the court or the notaire within strict time limits. The governing texts are Article 785 and Article 786 of the Civil Code.

Tax comes next, and it comes fast. The estate must file a succession declaration (déclaration de succession) with the French tax office, and Article 641 of the General Tax Code sets the clock: Les délais pour l’enregistrement des déclarations que les héritiers, donataires ou légataires ont à souscrire des biens à eux échus ou transmis par décès sont : De six mois, à compter du jour du décès, lorsque celui dont on recueille la succession est décédé en France métropolitaine; D’une année, dans tous les autres cas. A British resident inheriting from a parent who died in England therefore has twelve months, but interest for late filing runs and the French notaire cannot close the file without the tax clearance. Note the asymmetry that traps many families: the United Kingdom taxes the worldwide estate of a UK-domiciled person through inheritance tax with its own six-month payment horizon, while France taxes the French-situs assets and, where the deceased or the heir is French-resident, potentially more under the France-United Kingdom double tax arrangement of 1963 as amended. The executor should therefore run two calendars from day one, keep proof of tax paid on each side for the foreign-tax credit, and never promise beneficiaries a distribution date until both administrations have been fed. The deadline rule is at Article 641 of the General Tax Code, and the French tax office explains the declaration at impots.gouv.fr.

B. When the file blocks: children, notaires and banks

Three blocks recur in British files, and each has a legal answer. The first is the child who was left out. English wills can in principle disinherit a child; French forced heirship (réserve héréditaire) historically could not be evaded for French property. The Court of Cassation confirmed in a much-cited 2018 ruling that, for immovable property in France governed by French law under the old conflict rule, la dévolution successorale desdits immeubles devait tenir compte des règles de la réserve héréditaire, laquelle, d’ordre public interne, ne pouvait être écartée par des dispositions testamentaires établies selon la loi du domicile du défunt et régissant son statut personnel (see Cass. Civ. 1re, 4 July 2018, Nos 17-16.515 and 17-16.522). Since the Act of 24 August 2021, Article 913 of the Civil Code adds a compensatory levy mechanism (prélèvement compensateur) allowing a deprived child to take compensation from French assets when the applicable foreign law gives no equivalent of the reserve. An executor who distributes a Dordogne house to one sibling while ignoring the other’s claim under this mechanism distributes at personal risk. The remedy is to have the notaire compute the reserve position before any transfer and, if a child contests, to seek a court ruling rather than negotiate around the statute (see Article 913 of the Civil Code).

The second block is the notaire who will not move: missing English documents, no apostille, translations disputed, or a co-heir who refuses to sign the acte de notoriété. Here the executor’s leverage is procedural. A formal written request listing the documents supplied, with a deadline, followed by referral to the president of the judicial court for interim or supervisory measures, usually restarts the file; where the deadlock comes from the heirs’ disagreement or inertia, the application for a mandataire successoral under Article 813-1, described in Part I, transfers provisional administration to a neutral professional. Costs follow the event, so the letter before action should be precise, dated, and complete, because a French judge’s first question is always who supplied what and when.

The third block is the bank that keeps the funds although the file is complete: registered will, Certificate or acte de notoriété, tax receipt, identification of all heirs. The 2022 decision studied above cuts both ways: a bank may demand the tax registration, but once the file genuinely satisfies Articles 1000 and 655 and proves heirship, continued retention becomes a fault engaging the bank’s liability, and the heir or executor can sue for release with damages, exactly as the claimant did in that case. In practice, a recorded formal demand (mise en demeure) sent with the full bundle, giving the bank fifteen days and warning of court proceedings with a claim for interest and costs, resolves most retentions without a hearing. If proceedings are needed, they go before the judicial court of the place where the account is held, and the bundle that won or lost in the published case law should be replicated exactly: will with registration receipt, Certificate, proof of heirship, death certificate with apostille, and tax position.

Jurisdiction questions overlay all three blocks whenever the deceased lived in England but owned in France, or lived in France but kept English assets. Under the Succession Regulation, the courts of the state of habitual residence at death have general jurisdiction (Article 4), with subsidiary jurisdiction where assets lie and the deceased held that state’s nationality or had lived there (Article 10), and the choice of law follows habitual residence unless the deceased chose their national law (Articles 21 and 22), all of which can be read in the consolidated English text on Regulation (EU) No 650/2012. Because the United Kingdom is a third state for this Regulation, English courts apply their own private-international-law rules while French courts apply the Regulation, and the two answers can differ: parallel proceedings are possible, so the executor should fix the forum strategy early, ideally in agreement with all heirs, and record it in writing.

Conclusion

Administering a French estate as a British executor means accepting that the English grant of probate is the beginning of the file, not its key. Get the foreign will registered with the French tax office, prove heirship through the European Certificate of Succession or the acte de notoriété, act within the narrower French powers of the exécuteur testamentaire while the heirs hold saisine, force each heir to choose knowingly between full acceptance and acceptance up to the net assets, file the French declaration within six or twelve months, compute the forced-heirship position before distributing, and meet each refusal with the procedure built for it: registration receipt for the bank, court-appointed administrator for quarrelling heirs, and the judicial court for funds wrongly retained. Handled in that order, most franco-British files close within a year; handled in the English order, they stall at the first French counter. The will itself, and the choice of English law that shapes everything above, is covered in our pillar on English-law wills for French houses, which should be read before the next family meeting.