Your husband moved with you to the Dordogne five years ago, bought a stone house in both your names, kept his bank accounts in Leeds, and always meant to make a will covering the French property. Then a sudden heart attack leaves you a widow with two children from his first marriage, a French house, English accounts, and no will at all. Who owns what now? Does English law protect you because you are British, or does French law divide the estate? Do you need an English grant of probate, a French notaire (the public officer who alone can settle French estates and register property transfers), or both? And will the house be taxed twice, once in each country? These questions reach a lawyer’s desk almost every month since Brexit, because British families settled in France often hold assets in two countries and assume, wrongly, that intestacy (dying without a will) works the same on both sides. It does not. This guide explains, for a British reader living in France, which law decides who inherits when there is no will, what shares the surviving spouse and children actually receive, how the English probate and the French notaire procedure fit together, and how French succession tax and the 1963 Franco-British succession convention prevent most double taxation, with the remedies available when the tax office or a co-heir disagrees.

I. Which law decides who inherits and in what shares when a British resident dies without a will in France

A. How the habitual-residence rule points most British families in France towards French succession law

Since 17 August 2015, succession in France has been governed by Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition in succession matters, which France applies to every cross-border estate opened on its territory. The default rule is simple in outline: one law governs the whole estate, movables and immovables together, and that law is the law of the country where the deceased had his or her habitual residence at the moment of death. For a British national who had genuinely settled in France, that usually means French succession law governs the French house and the English bank accounts alike, even though the United Kingdom never opted into the Regulation. The British opt-out changes nothing from the French side: a French notaire and a French court apply the Regulation because it is French and European law for them, and the Regulation itself claims universal application, so that the designated law applies whether or not it is the law of a Member State.

Habitual residence is a question of fact, not of passport, visa or domicile in the English sense. The Court of Cassation recalls the method in a 29 May 2019 judgment on a disputed succession between New York and Paris, holding that “sont compétentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble d’une succession les juridictions de l’État membre dans lequel le défunt avait sa résidence habituelle au moment de son décès” and that, to find that residence, “l’autorité chargée de la succession doit procéder à une évaluation d’ensemble des circonstances de la vie du défunt au cours des années précédant son décès et au moment de son décès, prenant en compte tous les éléments de fait pertinents, notamment la durée et la régularité de la présence du défunt dans l’État concerné ainsi que les conditions et les raisons de cette présence” (Cass. civ. 1, 29 May 2019, No 18-13.383). In practice the notaire builds a file of ordinary life: the address on the French tax returns, registration with the health system, the length and continuity of presence in France, where the couple shopped, worshipped, visited the doctor and received post, and the reasons for keeping a foot in England. A retired couple living ten months a year in the Dordogne, filing French resident tax returns and visiting Leeds for Christmas, will normally be found habitually resident in France. A consultant who rented a Paris flat for an eighteen-month project while his wife and children stayed in Surrey, flying home every weekend, may well be found still resident in England, in which case English intestacy law could govern even the Paris flat. Where the deceased split time evenly between two countries, the same judgment notes that nationality and the location of the main assets can tip the balance, which helps British nationals whose wealth remains concentrated in England but does not rescue every second-home owner.

Two misunderstandings recur at this stage and both cost families dearly. The first is the belief that, absent a will, each asset follows its own national law, so that the Dordogne house passes under French law while the Leeds accounts pass under English law. That fragmentation, called scission, ended in France with the Regulation: one estate, one law, one court with principal jurisdiction. The second is the belief that the surviving family can choose English law after the death because it looks more generous. They cannot. The Regulation allows a person to choose the law of his or her nationality to govern the succession, but that choice, called professio juris, must be made by the deceased in a will or equivalent disposition. When someone dies intestate there is, by definition, no such choice, and the heirs are bound by the objective habitual-residence rule. The lesson for surviving spouses reading this article is practical rather than theoretical: you cannot repair the absence of a will after death, but you can still make your own choice-of-law will today, and the examples below show why English clients with children from different marriages so often do.

The starting point of French intestate law is stated in one sentence: “La succession est dévolue par la loi aux parents et au conjoint successibles du défunt dans les conditions définies ci-après” (Civil Code, art. 731). Only relatives and the surviving spouse inherit; an unmarried partner, however long the cohabitation, inherits nothing intestate, and stepchildren who were never adopted inherit nothing either. The surviving spouse only counts as an heir if the couple were still married at death: “Est conjoint successible le conjoint survivant non divorcé” (Civil Code, art. 732). A decree absolute pronounced before death removes the ex-spouse from the succession entirely, while divorce proceedings still pending at death do not. A spouse separated in fact but never divorced remains a full heir, which surprises British clients who assume that years of separation end the claim.

B. What the surviving spouse and children actually receive when French intestacy applies

When there are children, they stand first in line. The Code provides that “En l’absence de conjoint successible, les parents sont appelés à succéder ainsi qu’il suit : 1° Les enfants et leurs descendants” (Civil Code, art. 734), and the presence of a surviving spouse does not push the children out but shares the estate with them. The spouse’s share is fixed by Article 757: “Si l’époux prédécédé laisse des enfants ou descendants, le conjoint survivant recueille, à son choix, l’usufruit de la totalité des biens existants ou la propriété du quart des biens lorsque tous les enfants sont issus des deux époux et la propriété du quart en présence d’un ou plusieurs enfants qui ne sont pas issus des deux époux” (Civil Code, art. 757). The vocabulary needs explanation because it has no exact English equivalent. Usufruit (usufruct) means the lifelong right to use the property and take its income, living in the house or receiving the rents, while the children hold the nue-propriété (bare ownership) and recover full ownership when the usufruct ends, normally at the survivor’s death. Full ownership of one quarter means the spouse owns that quarter outright and can sell it or leave it by will.

The choice matters enormously and the Code forces it only where it is safe. When all the children are the couple’s common children, the survivor chooses freely between lifelong usufruct of everything and outright ownership of one quarter, the children sharing the rest. When at least one child comes from an earlier relationship, there is no choice at all: the survivor takes outright ownership of one quarter and the children share three quarters between them. The Court of Cassation enforces this strictly. In a 5 March 2025 judgment it recalled that “Selon ce texte, si l’époux prédécédé laisse un ou plusieurs enfants qui ne sont pas issus des deux époux, le conjoint survivant recueille la propriété du quart des biens existants”, quashing an appeal court that had treated the widow as a usufructuary for want of a formally proved option (Cass. civ. 1, 5 March 2025, No 23-11.430). Take the Dordogne widow with two stepchildren: on a 400,000 euro estate she receives 100,000 euros outright and the children 150,000 euros each in bare ownership terms, whereas had the children been common she could instead have kept lifelong use of the whole house. British readers should compare this with English intestacy, where a surviving spouse married after March 2023 keeps the personal chattels, a fixed statutory legacy and half the remainder: the French outcome is often less generous to the spouse in blended families, which is exactly why lifetime planning matters.

Where there are no children, the parents and siblings of the deceased reappear. The Code states that “Lorsque les père et mère survivent au défunt et que celui-ci n’a pas de postérité, mais des frères et soeurs ou des descendants de ces derniers, la succession est dévolue, pour un quart, à chacun des père et mère et, pour la moitié restante, aux frères et soeurs ou à leurs descendants” (Civil Code, art. 738). If only one parent survives alongside siblings, that parent takes one quarter and the siblings share three quarters. If no parent survives but siblings do, the siblings share everything. The surviving spouse, where there are no children but a father or mother survives, takes one half and the parents share the other half; where no parent survives either, the spouse takes everything, to the exclusion of siblings. Representation, the mechanism by which the children of a predeceased child step into that child’s shoes and share his or her portion, applies throughout, so that a grandchild is never left out because his parent died first.

Even without a will, lifetime gifts still shape the division, because French law protects children through the réserve héréditaire (reserved share). The Code defines it as “la part des biens et droits successoraux dont la loi assure la dévolution libre de charges à certains héritiers dits réservataires, s’ils sont appelés à la succession et s’ils l’acceptent”, the balance being the freely disposable portion (Civil Code, art. 912). The reserve equals one half with one child, two thirds with two children and three quarters with three or more, since lifetime gifts and testamentary gifts together “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” (Civil Code, art. 913). In an intestacy there is no will to reduce, but large gifts made during life are notionally brought back into the mass and can trigger a payment, called the indemnité de réduction, from the child who received too much. A British father who gave his eldest 200,000 euros years ago towards a London flat and dies intestate in France leaving 300,000 euros will see the gift counted: heirs who received less can claim compensation before the estate is shared. Gifts made more than fifteen years before death escape the tax recapture described below, but they remain visible in the civil calculation, and the family must disclose them to the notaire.

II. How the estate is settled on both sides of the Channel and how the French tax bill is challenged

A. Why most families need both an English grant of probate and a French notaire file

Dying intestate in France with English assets leaves the family dealing with two very different machines. In England and Wales, an intestate estate above the small-asset thresholds normally needs a grant of letters of administration from the Probate Registry before banks, share registrars and the land registry will release anything. The application is made through the official probate service described on the United Kingdom government’s probate guidance (GOV.UK, Applying for probate), the administrator swears the intestacy, values the English assets, pays any English inheritance tax due on the English side or arranges instalments, and then collects and distributes under the English Administration of Estates Act for whatever portion of the estate English law governs or English institutions physically control. English banks routinely freeze sole accounts on notification of death and will not move until they see the sealed grant, and English registrars take the same line. Families should therefore apply early, order several sealed copies, and keep one untouched original for France, because the French notaire will want to see it and will return it.

In France the notaire is not optional where land is involved. Only a notaire can draw up the acte de notoriété (the formal deed listing the heirs and their shares), the attestation immobilière (the deed transferring legal title to the house into the heirs’ names for publication at the land registry), and the final partage (partition) or licitation (sale by auction or agreed sale ending co-ownership) if the family sells. French law itself states the starting principle that “La preuve de la qualité d’héritier s’établit par tous moyens” (Civil Code, art. 730), which means a bank may in theory accept any proof, but in practice French banks, insurers and the land registry demand the notaire’s deeds, and the official service-public guidance confirms that proving heirship runs through the acte de notoriété or equivalent certificates (Service-public.fr, How to prove you are an heir). The family help sheet on settling a succession walks through the same sequence of declaration, inventory, debts and partition (Service-public.fr, Settlement of a succession). Expect the notaire to request the death certificate with apostille and sworn translation, the English grant with sworn translation, the marriage certificate, the children’s birth certificates, the French property deeds, the last three French tax notices, bank statements on both sides, and a full list of lifetime gifts. Where documents are in English, budget for a certified translator registered with a French court of appeal, and allow several weeks for the land registry publication alone.

The two procedures interlock rather than duplicate. The English grant unlocks the Leeds accounts and lets the administrator transmit the funds to France or distribute them directly; the notaire records the English grant as evidence of what was collected abroad, values the worldwide estate, computes each heir’s share under the applicable law, and publishes the French property transfer. Until the attestation immobilière is published, the heirs cannot validly sell the Dordogne house, and any buyer will insist on seeing it. Until the final accounts are signed, no heir should distribute informally, because an heir who pays debts or shares money without authority can become personally entangled. Where the family agrees, the notaire draws up an amicable partition and everyone signs; where they disagree on values, on the usufruct, on compensation for gifts, or on whether to sell, any heir can bring a court action for judicial partition before the tribunal judiciaire of the place where the succession opened, and the court can order valuations, advances and ultimately sale. Families in the Paris region should allow for longer listing times for valuations and hearings, keep the property insured and maintained in the meantime, and designate one heir or the notaire to hold the keys and the post.

Three practical traps deserve emphasis. First, the surviving spouse’s option between usufruct and ownership, where it exists, must be exercised clearly and recorded by the notaire within the legal framework, because the 2025 judgment above shows that ambiguous paperwork invites litigation from children who argue the choice was never validly made. Second, co-ownership (indivision) between a widow and stepchildren can last years and every major decision requires agreement, so agreeing early on occupation, rent, works and sale mandate avoids stalemate. Third, debts follow the estate: heirs may accept outright, accept subject to inventory (acceptation à concurrence de l’actif net), or renounce within the statutory option period, and an heir worried about unknown English liabilities should never accept blindly before the inventory is complete.

B. How French succession tax, British inheritance tax and the 1963 convention share the bill, and how to challenge it

France taxes the Worldwide estate of a person who was resident in France at death, while the United Kingdom taxes the worldwide estate of a person domiciled in the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom-situated assets of anyone else. A British national who had become French-resident therefore faces two theoretical tax nets at once: French droits de succession on everything and British inheritance tax on the English assets at least. Double taxation is avoided, not by either country’s domestic law alone, but by the Franco-British succession convention signed in Paris on 21 June 1963, which allocates taxing rights between the two states and grants a credit in the country of residence for tax paid in the country where particular assets are situated, within the limits of its own tax on those assets. The United Kingdom government’s guidance on inheritance tax double taxation relief explains the same credit mechanism from the British side (GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax double taxation relief). In a standard Dordogne case the French house is taxed in France, the English accounts are taxed in the United Kingdom first and the French bill on those accounts is reduced by a credit for the British tax, so the family pays the higher of the two charges on the English assets but never both in full. Claiming the credit is not automatic: the French succession declaration must identify the English assets, state the British tax assessed with proof of payment, and compute the credit asset by asset, which is why the notaire asks for the English probate valuations and the HMRC receipts before filing.

French allowances between parents and children remain generous for direct-line heirs. The Code provides that “il est effectué un abattement de 100 000 € sur la part de chacun des ascendants et sur la part de chacun des enfants vivants ou représentés par suite de prédécès ou de renonciation” (General Tax Code, art. 779), so each child deducts 100,000 euros from his or her share before the progressive scale applies, and the surviving spouse is fully exempt from French succession tax. Siblings, nephews and unrelated persons pay far more, with lower allowances and higher rates, which is why the presence or absence of children transforms the bill. Gifts made during life interact directly with the declaration because “Les parties sont tenues de faire connaître, dans tout acte constatant une transmission entre vifs à titre gratuit et dans toute déclaration de succession, s’il existe ou non des donations antérieures consenties à un titre et sous une forme quelconque par le donateur ou le défunt aux donataires, héritiers ou légataires” (General Tax Code, art. 784), and earlier gifts within fifteen years are added back to compute the progressive bracket. The declaration itself is compulsory: “Les héritiers, légataires ou donataires, leurs tuteurs ou curateurs, sont tenus de souscrire une déclaration détaillée” (General Tax Code, art. 800), subject only to narrow exemptions for very small estates, and it must be filed within six months of death where death occurred in France or twelve months where it occurred abroad, with interest for late filing and penalties for omission. The official declaration help page sets out the forms, the documents and the offices involved (Service-public.fr, Succession declaration and duties).

When the family considers the assessment wrong, three challenges recur. The first concerns residence itself: the tax office treats the deceased as French-resident and taxes worldwide assets, while the family argues for English residence and taxation of French assets only. Evidence mirrors the civil habitual-residence file, tax returns, health cover, school records and travel history, and the family should align the civil and tax positions from the start rather than arguing French residence for a favourable civil share and English residence for tax. The second concerns valuation and the credit: the notaire or the family disputes the house valuation, the valuation date for English accounts in euros, or the amount of British tax credited. An independent valuation, the sterling-euro rate on the date of death, and HMRC closing documents usually settle these points. The third concerns the usufruct valuation where the spouse took lifelong usufruct: French tax scales value the usufruct by the survivor’s age, and a mistake in the age band changes every heir’s bill. The route in each case begins with a reasoned written claim to the tax office that issued the notice, within the statutory complaint period, attaching valuations, translations and proof of British tax paid, and continues, if the reply is negative or never comes, before the court with jurisdiction over registration duties, where the family can also seek suspension of enforced recovery in urgent cases. Interest accrues while the dispute lasts, so paying under protest and then claiming repayment is often cheaper than refusing to pay, provided the payment letter reserves every right and the claim is filed in time.

Conclusion

A British death without a will in France is settled by method, not by panic. French law will usually govern the whole estate through habitual residence, the children and the surviving spouse will share it in the fixed proportions of Articles 734, 738 and 757 with no choice in blended families, lifetime gifts will be counted, the English grant will unlock the English side while the notaire’s deeds transfer the French house, and the 1963 convention will prevent the same euro being taxed twice. Families who assemble the paper trail early, record the spouse’s option cleanly, declare the English assets with proof of British tax paid, and challenge an assessment through a reasoned claim before litigating, give themselves every chance of a settlement within the first year. The one decision that should not wait is the survivors’ own wills: a choice-of-law clause in favour of English law, fresh mirror wills covering both countries, and a review of beneficiary designations for insurance contracts will spare the next generation the very maze this article has mapped.