{"id":2117685,"date":"2026-09-07T22:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/2026\/09\/07\/french-notaire-refuses-uk-grant-of-probate-brexit\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T22:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:04:08","slug":"french-notaire-refuses-uk-grant-of-probate-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/en\/2026\/09\/07\/french-notaire-refuses-uk-grant-of-probate-brexit\/","title":{"rendered":"French Notaire Refuses Your UK Grant of Probate After Brexit? How to Unlock the French Estate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The English grant of probate has arrived. The French house, the Paris flat or the bank account in France stays frozen. The notaire<\/em> (the French public officer who handles property transfers and estates) has written to say that a United Kingdom grant is not a French title to administer, that an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> (a notarial affidavit of heirship) is missing, or that a UK will cannot be \u201cexecuted\u201d on French assets until it has been registered. Bereaved families often hear this as a refusal of the English court. It is usually something more precise, and more French: since Brexit the United Kingdom issues no European Certificate of Succession, French law seises the heirs by operation of law, and a foreign will has to pass the registration filter in article 1000 of the Code civil<\/a> (the French Civil Code) before it can be carried out on property situated in France.<\/p>\n

This article is for British executors and beneficiaries who hold, or have been told to obtain, a UK grant of probate or letters of administration, and who now face a French notary who will not treat that grant as enough. It does not cover the purchase of French property, which belongs to another desk, nor which succession law applies to a British resident who dies in France \u2014 see the cabinet\u2019s note on forced heirship and the choice of law<\/a>. The crisis here is narrower: the estate is blocked and the family needs to know which document unlocks the French assets, which tax registration is due, and what to do if the notary will not proceed. The answers sit in the Civil Code, the General Tax Code, and Cour de cassation (the French Court of Cassation) decisions holding that even a European Certificate of Succession is not an enforceable title.<\/p>\n

I. Why will the French notaire not treat my UK grant of probate as enough after Brexit?<\/h2>\n

A. Does French law give heirs the estate automatically, unlike English probate?<\/h3>\n

English probate and French saisine<\/em> (the automatic vesting of the estate in the heirs) are not two labels for the same idea. In England and Wales, the deceased\u2019s estate does not pass straight to the beneficiaries. A personal representative \u2014 an executor named in the will, or an administrator where there is no will or the executor cannot act \u2014 must obtain a grant from the Probate Registry. Until that grant is extracted, there is in principle no one who can give a good receipt for UK assets or convey UK land. GOV.UK\u2019s own guidance, \u201cApplying for probate<\/a>\u201d, describes that English machinery: you apply for probate, you may need to stop a competing application, and you value the estate for HM Revenue and Customs. That is the document British families bring to France, expecting it to speak with the same authority on a house in the Dordogne or a studio in the 16th arrondissement.<\/p>\n

French law starts somewhere else. Article 720 of the Civil Code<\/a> states: \u201cLes successions s’ouvrent par la mort, au dernier domicile du d\u00e9funt.\u201d The estate is opened by death, at the last domicile of the deceased. There is no French equivalent of waiting for a court to clothe a personal representative with title. Article 724 of the Civil Code<\/a> then provides: \u201cLes h\u00e9ritiers d\u00e9sign\u00e9s par la loi sont saisis de plein droit des biens, droits et actions du d\u00e9funt.\u201d The heirs designated by the law are seised as of right of the deceased\u2019s property, rights and actions. Universal legatees and universal donees are seised on the conditions of Title II of the same book; failing them, the State must be sent into possession. The contrast with English probate is structural. The French heir does not wait for a grant in order to exist as heir. He or she is seised, and must then prove that quality.<\/p>\n

The Cour de cassation has treated that seisin as a real power to act, not a metaphor. In a decision of 13 September 2017, pourvoi n\u00b0 15-25.703<\/a>, the first civil chamber quashed a court of appeal which had declared a surviving spouse inadmissible to continue an action, after citing article 724 in these terms: \u201cVu l’article 724 du code civil ; Attendu que le conjoint survivant, investi de la saisine sur l’universalit\u00e9 de l’h\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9, dispose des droits et actions du d\u00e9funt.\u201d The surviving spouse, invested with seisin over the universality of the inheritance, has the deceased\u2019s rights and actions. The case was a French matrimonial-property liquidation, not a Franco-British estate, and it cannot be stretched into a ruling on UK grants. What it does confirm, in the Court\u2019s own words, is that seisin under article 724 is the source of the heir\u2019s standing. That is why a French notary looks for proof of heirship, not for an English-style appointment of a personal representative.<\/p>\n

French law does know an ex\u00e9cuteur testamentaire<\/em> (a testamentary executor). Article 1025 of the Civil Code<\/a> states: \u201cLe testateur peut nommer un ou plusieurs ex\u00e9cuteurs testamentaires jouissant de la pleine capacit\u00e9 civile pour veiller ou proc\u00e9der \u00e0 l’ex\u00e9cution de ses volont\u00e9s.\u201d The testator may appoint one or more executors with full legal capacity to watch over or carry out his or her wishes. That person is not, by the fact of appointment, seised of the estate in the English sense. The mission can be taken away. Article 1026 of the Civil Code<\/a> states: \u201cL’ex\u00e9cuteur testamentaire peut \u00eatre relev\u00e9 de sa mission pour motifs graves par le tribunal.\u201d The executor may be relieved of the mission for serious grounds by the court. A UK grant of probate, which under English law vests the estate in the personal representative, therefore answers a question French law does not ask in the same way. The notary who says \u201cthis grant does not make you the owner of the French house\u201d is not being obstructive for the sake of it. He is reading articles 720, 724 and 1025 as they are written.<\/p>\n

Proof of the quality of heir is a separate step from seisin. Article 730 of the Civil Code<\/a> states: \u201cLa preuve de la qualit\u00e9 d’h\u00e9ritier s’\u00e9tablit par tous moyens.\u201d Proof of the quality of heir is established by any means. The same article adds that this does not derogate from the provisions or usages concerning the issue of certificates of ownership or of heirship by judicial or administrative authorities. A UK grant can be one piece of evidence among others. It is not, in French law, a substitute for the notarial instrument which the Code itself organises in the next article.<\/p>\n

B. Is a UK grant of probate a European Certificate of Succession or a French acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9?<\/h3>\n

Two documents are regularly confused with a UK grant, and Brexit has made the confusion expensive. The first is the European Certificate of Succession created by Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012 of 4 July 2012. That certificate is issued by the authorities of a Member State. The United Kingdom is not a Member State. A grant extracted in London, Edinburgh or Belfast is not a European Certificate of Succession, and no amount of apostille or sworn translation can turn it into one. Families who remember the pre-Brexit years, when some cross-border files moved on a European certificate, are meeting that limit for the first time at the notary\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

Even if the family held a genuine European Certificate of Succession issued in another Member State, French law would still not treat it as a magic key. On 13 April 2022 the Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, pourvoi n\u00b0 20-23.530, published in the Bulletin, rejected a German heir\u2019s attempt to force a French bank to release funds on the strength of a European Certificate of Succession, without first registering the foreign will. The Court\u2019s own reply, at paragraph 7 of the judgment, is in these terms: \u201cLa cour d’appel a justement retenu que, conform\u00e9ment au consid\u00e9rant 71 du r\u00e8glement UE n\u00b0 650\/2012 du 4 juillet 2012, le certificat successoral europ\u00e9en avait une efficacit\u00e9 probatoire mais ne constituait pas un titre ex\u00e9cutoire, de sorte que, s’il attestait de la qualit\u00e9 et des droits d’h\u00e9ritier, il n’\u00e9puisait pas n\u00e9cessairement les formalit\u00e9s \u00e0 mettre en oeuvre pour obtenir l’ex\u00e9cution de ces droits.\u201d The European certificate had evidential effect but was not an enforceable title; if it attested the quality and rights of heir, it did not necessarily exhaust the formalities needed to obtain execution of those rights. The decision can be read on the Court\u2019s site at Cour de cassation, 13 April 2022, n\u00b0 20-23.530<\/a>. A UK grant, which is not even that certificate, cannot be expected to do more.<\/p>\n

The second document is the French acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em>. Article 730-1 of the Civil Code<\/a> states: \u201cLa preuve de la qualit\u00e9 d’h\u00e9ritier peut r\u00e9sulter d’un acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 dress\u00e9 par un notaire, \u00e0 la demande d’un ou plusieurs ayants droit.\u201d Proof of the quality of heir may result from an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 drawn up by a notary, at the request of one or more persons entitled. The same article requires the instrument to refer to the death certificate, to mention the supporting documents produced \u2014 civil-status acts and, where relevant, documents concerning gifts on death which may affect the devolution \u2014 and to contain the signed affirmation of the applicants that they are entitled, alone or with others whom they name, to take all or part of the estate. Anyone whose statements appear useful may be called to the act. A mention is made in the margin of the death certificate. That is a French notarial instrument, drawn in French form, on French supporting papers. A UK grant of probate is not that instrument.<\/p>\n

Once drawn, the acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 has a defined evidential force. Article 730-3 of the Civil Code<\/a> states: \u201cL’acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 ainsi \u00e9tabli fait foi jusqu’\u00e0 preuve contraire. Celui qui s’en pr\u00e9vaut est pr\u00e9sum\u00e9 avoir des droits h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaires dans la proportion qui s’y trouve indiqu\u00e9e.\u201d The acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 so established is authentic until proof to the contrary. The person who relies on it is presumed to have hereditary rights in the proportion indicated in it. Service-Public, in the fiche \u201cComment prouver que l\u2019on est h\u00e9ritier d’une succession (attestation, acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9) ?\u201d (F12697, checked 1 January 2026), summarises the domestic French choice as an attestation signed by all the heirs or an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9. That fiche does not mention a UK grant of probate, and it does not mention Brexit. That is the gap the British family is standing in. The notary who asks for an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 is asking for the instrument to which articles 730-1 and 730-3 attach a presumption. He is not obliged, by those articles, to treat the English grant as that instrument.<\/p>\n

Jurisdiction over the succession is a further, separate question, and it is easy to misread the case law. On 21 September 2022 the Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, pourvoi n\u00b0 19-15.438, published in the Bulletin, held that the French courts were competent over the whole of a succession even though the court of appeal had located the deceased\u2019s habitual residence in the United Kingdom. The deceased was a French national who owned assets in France. At paragraph 10 the Court recorded: \u201cPour d\u00e9clarer la juridiction fran\u00e7aise incomp\u00e9tente pour statuer sur la succession de [Y] [H] et d\u00e9signer un mandataire successoral, l’arr\u00eat retient que la r\u00e9sidence habituelle du d\u00e9funt \u00e9tait situ\u00e9e au Royaume-Uni.\u201d At paragraph 11 it held that the court of appeal had thereby violated the subsidiary jurisdiction rule, because its own findings showed French nationality and assets in France. At paragraph 14 it added: \u201cLa cour d’appel ayant constat\u00e9 que [Y] [H] avait la nationalit\u00e9 fran\u00e7aise et poss\u00e9dait des biens situ\u00e9s en France, les juridictions fran\u00e7aises sont donc comp\u00e9tentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble de sa succession en application de l’article 10, \u00a7 1, sous a), du R\u00e8glement (UE) n\u00b0 650\/2012 du Parlement europ\u00e9en et du Conseil du 4 juillet 2012.\u201d The judgment is at Cour de cassation, 21 September 2022, n\u00b0 19-15.438<\/a>. That ruling is not a general statement that every British estate with a French house belongs to the French courts. Article 10, \u00a7 1, under a), as applied in that case, turned on the deceased\u2019s French nationality. A British-only deceased who was habitually resident in the United Kingdom, leaving only a holiday home in France, raises a different connecting factor, which must be examined on its own facts. What the decision does show, for the British family, is that a UK habitual residence does not, of itself, make a French notary or a French court disappear from the file when there are French assets and a relevant link to France.<\/p>\n

The notary\u2019s \u201crefusal\u201d of the UK grant is therefore usually a classification, not a diplomatic incident. The grant is evidence of what an English court has done under English law. It is not a European Certificate of Succession. It is not an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9. It does not, without more, execute a UK will on French immovables. The next question is what the family must actually produce, and how to move the file if the notary still will not.<\/p>\n

II. How can British heirs unlock the French estate when the notaire has refused the UK grant?<\/h2>\n

A. What documents must I register and produce for the French assets?<\/h3>\n

Where there is a UK will which is to have effect on property situated in France, registration is not a courtesy. Article 1000 of the Civil Code<\/a> states: \u201cLes testaments faits en pays \u00e9tranger ne pourront \u00eatre ex\u00e9cut\u00e9s sur les biens situ\u00e9s en France qu’apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 enregistr\u00e9s au bureau du domicile du testateur, s’il en a conserv\u00e9 un, sinon au bureau de son dernier domicile connu en France ; et, dans le cas o\u00f9 le testament contiendrait des dispositions d’immeubles qui y seraient situ\u00e9s, il devra \u00eatre, en outre, enregistr\u00e9 au bureau de la situation de ces immeubles, sans qu’il puisse \u00eatre exig\u00e9 un double droit.\u201d Wills made in a foreign country cannot be executed on property situated in France until they have been registered at the office of the testator\u2019s domicile, if he or she has kept one, otherwise at the office of the last known domicile in France; and if the will contains dispositions of immovables situated in France, it must also be registered at the office of the situation of those immovables, without a double duty being demanded.<\/p>\n

The tax code repeats the same filter in almost the same words. Article 655 of the Code g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des imp\u00f4ts<\/a> (the French General Tax Code) states: \u201cLes testaments faits en pays \u00e9trangers ne peuvent \u00eatre ex\u00e9cut\u00e9s sur les biens situ\u00e9s en France, qu’apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 enregistr\u00e9s au service des imp\u00f4ts du domicile du testateur, s’il en a conserv\u00e9 un, sinon \u00e0 celui de son dernier domicile connu en France ; et dans le cas o\u00f9 le testament contient des dispositions d’immeubles qui y sont situ\u00e9s, il doit \u00eatre, en outre, enregistr\u00e9 au service des imp\u00f4ts de la situation de ces immeubles, sans que les p\u00e9nalit\u00e9s pr\u00e9vues aux articles 1727 et suivants soient applicables.\u201d The fiscal article names the tax office rather than the \u201cbureau\u201d, and it excludes the penalties of articles 1727 and following. The civil article and the fiscal article must be read together. A UK will that has been admitted to probate in England is still, for these texts, a will made in a foreign country. Until it is registered in France, it \u201cne pourront \u00eatre ex\u00e9cut\u00e9s\u201d \/ \u201cne peuvent \u00eatre ex\u00e9cut\u00e9s\u201d on French assets: they cannot be executed there.<\/p>\n

The Cour de cassation has refused to treat European succession machinery as a waiver of that registration. In the same 13 April 2022 decision, n\u00b0 20-23.530, the Court held at paragraph 8 that the court of appeal had been right to treat articles 1000 of the Civil Code and 655 of the General Tax Code as a tax formality, because the formality belongs to the tax administration and gives rise to a fixed duty of 125 euros. At paragraph 9 it added: \u201cElle en exactement d\u00e9duit que l’exigence d’enregistrement de tout testament \u00e9tabli \u00e0 l’\u00e9tranger, qui ne remettait pas en cause l’efficacit\u00e9 probatoire du certificat successoral europ\u00e9en et ne constituait pas une condition d’ex\u00e9cution des testaments prohib\u00e9e par le R\u00e8glement, ne portait pas atteinte au principe d’application directe du r\u00e8glement ni ne le privait de son effet utile.\u201d The requirement to register every will made abroad did not undermine the evidential effect of the European certificate and was not a condition of execution of wills prohibited by the Regulation. If that is the law for a European certificate issued in Germany, it is the law a fortiori for a UK grant issued after Brexit, which does not even enter the Regulation\u2019s certificate scheme. The notary who will not complete a French sale, a French transfer or a French release of funds until article 1000 has been satisfied is applying a text the Court of Cassation has treated as a surviving national formality.<\/p>\n

The acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 then has to be built on French-usable papers. Article 730-1 lists what the instrument must contain: the death, the supporting documents, the signed affirmation of vocation to the estate. In a Franco-British file those supporting documents typically include the French or UK death certificate, the UK will in a sworn French translation, evidence of the family (marriage, civil partnership, children), and, where the deceased lived in France, evidence of last domicile. A UK grant of probate, apostilled and translated, can be produced as a document \u201cqui concernent l’existence de lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9s \u00e0 cause de mort\u201d within the meaning of article 730-1, because it is the English court\u2019s confirmation of the will. It remains a supporting document. It is not the acte itself. Service-Public\u2019s fiche F12697, already cited, still presents the French-domestic alternatives of a signed attestation of heirs or an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9. For an estate with a French immovable, or with a dispute, or with a foreign will, the notarial route is the one that article 730-3 then clothes with a presumption until proof to the contrary.<\/p>\n

Public documents issued in the United Kingdom are not used in France in their raw English form. Service-Public\u2019s fiche \u201cL\u00e9galisation d’un acte public \u00e9tabli par une autorit\u00e9 \u00e9trang\u00e8re\u201d (F1402, checked 30 October 2025) explains the legalisation of a foreign public act, the need for translation, the authority to approach, the time limit, and how to challenge a refusal of legalisation. The United Kingdom and France are both parties to the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961, so the usual path for a UK grant is an apostille rather than a full consular legalisation, followed by a sworn translation into French. The precise apostille office is a UK matter, described on GOV.UK; the French notary will not complete the acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 on an untranslated English grant. Families should not confuse that legalisation step with the article 1000 registration step. One authenticates the foreign public document. The other is the fiscal and civil condition for executing a foreign will on French assets. Both can be required. Neither is performed by extracting probate in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Two related French files should not be allowed to cannibalise this one. If the only blocked asset is a French bank account, the cabinet has already set out the bank\u2019s duties when a British resident dies, in the note on a blocked account and the release of funds<\/a>. If the fight is about French inheritance tax, a life-insurance payout, or forced heirship, those are different claims, with different texts. The notary who refuses the UK grant is usually asking for the 730-1 instrument and the 1000 registration, not for a second English lawsuit. The family that arrives with only the grant, and with no translated will, no death certificate usable in France, and no application to register, is asking the notary to skip two statutes the Cour de cassation has not skipped.<\/p>\n

Option successorale \u2014 the choice to accept the French succession outright, accept it up to the net assets, or renounce it \u2014 is a further French act which a UK grant does not perform. Service-Public\u2019s fiche \u201cAccepter ou renoncer \u00e0 la succession (option successorale)\u201d (F1199, checked 1 January 2026) sets out the options, the time limits, and the fact that the choice is in principle definitive. A British executor who has already intermeddled with UK assets under the grant has not, by that fact, accepted the French succession. Acceptance, inventory and renunciation remain French-form acts, often received by the same notary who is being asked to draw the acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9. Mixing the English personal representative\u2019s authority with a silent acceptance of a French estate is a way to inherit French debts as well as French land. The notary who slows the file to put that choice on the table is not inventing a difficulty.<\/p>\n

B. How do I challenge a notaire who still refuses to proceed?<\/h3>\n

Not every delay is a refusal, and not every refusal is unlawful. The notary who asks for a death certificate, a translated will, registration under article 1000, or an affirmation of heirship under article 730-1 is asking for what those articles name. The notary who will not explain which document is missing, who treats the UK grant as \u201cinvalid\u201d as if an English court had no existence, or who declines to draw an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 although an ayant droit has requested it under article 730-1, is in a different position. Article 730-1 is written as a faculty: proof \u201cpeut r\u00e9sulter\u201d of an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 drawn \u201c\u00e0 la demande d’un ou plusieurs ayants droit\u201d. One person entitled may request it. The instrument is not a privilege of the English executor. A beneficiary who is an heir in French law can instruct a notary even if the UK personal representative is still collecting papers in Britain.<\/p>\n

The first practical step is therefore to put the request in writing, in French, identifying the deceased, the French assets, the UK grant as a supporting document, and the demand that an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 be drawn under article 730-1, and that any UK will be presented for registration under article 1000 and article 655. The letter should enclose the apostilled grant, the sworn translation, the death certificate, and the will. If the notary still will not proceed, a second notary may be instructed. Nothing in articles 730 or 730-1 gives a monopoly to the first office that opened a file. Service-Public\u2019s fiche \u201cLe recours \u00e0 un notaire est-il obligatoire dans le cadre d’une succession ?\u201d (F1295, checked 1 January 2026) reminds readers that a notary is compulsory in some successions and not in others; where French immovables have to be transferred, notarial form is in practice unavoidable. Changing notary is often faster than arguing with an office that has already labelled the UK grant as useless.<\/p>\n

Where the dispute is about who the heirs are, the acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 is only a presumption. Article 730-3 says it is authentic until proof to the contrary. A disappointed relative, a child omitted from a UK will, or a person who says the deceased was habitually resident in France and that French forced heirship applies, can bring that contradiction before the tribunal judiciaire<\/em> (the French judicial court). That is the moment at which the cabinet\u2019s separate analysis of the UK will and forced heirship<\/a> becomes the main file, rather than the probate-document file. The notary should not be asked to decide a choice-of-law battle that belongs to the court. Conversely, the court should not be seised only because the family has not yet registered the will or asked for an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9. The two recourses have different objects.<\/p>\n

Where French courts do have jurisdiction, they can appoint a mandataire successoral<\/em> (an estate representative) and they can deal with the succession as a whole. That is what the Cour de cassation actually did in the 21 September 2022 decision: it set aside the Versailles court of appeal, held that the French courts were competent, and confirmed an order of the president of the tribunal de grande instance of Nanterre made in the form of r\u00e9f\u00e9r\u00e9<\/em> (urgent proceedings). The United Kingdom connection in that case was the widow\u2019s domicile in the United Kingdom and a debate about habitual residence. The Court\u2019s dispositif is not a model order for every British holiday home, but it is a warning against the idea that \u201cthe estate is English, so France must wait\u201d. A family that needs a French court order because heirs cannot agree, or because a notary will not act in the face of a genuine dispute, can apply to the tribunal judiciaire of the last domicile, or, in a Paris and \u00cele-de-France file, to the tribunal judiciaire de Paris or the court of the last French domicile in the Paris region. The chambre des notaires of Paris can also be asked to help identify an office willing to instrument. Those are local channels. They do not rewrite articles 724, 730-1 or 1000.<\/p>\n

A UK grant remains useful. It is often the cleanest proof that an English court has admitted the will, appointed the personal representative, and allowed that person to collect UK assets. French banks, French buyers and French land registries, however, take their orders from French instruments. The Cour de cassation\u2019s paragraph 7 in n\u00b0 20-23.530 is the sentence to keep on the file: even a European certificate \u201cn’\u00e9puisait pas n\u00e9cessairement les formalit\u00e9s \u00e0 mettre en oeuvre pour obtenir l’ex\u00e9cution de ces droits\u201d. After Brexit, the UK grant is one formality among others, not the last word. The family that registers the will, obtains the acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9, and keeps the apostille and the translation in the notary\u2019s deed packet is not \u201cconceding\u201d that English probate is worthless. It is putting the English document in the only place French law has made for it: among the pi\u00e8ces justificatives of article 730-1, after the filter of article 1000.<\/p>\n

If the notary\u2019s difficulty is in truth a tax difficulty \u2014 undeclared UK accounts, an inheritance-tax return, a life-insurance declaration \u2014 those issues must be named as such. Mixing them into a pretended defect of the UK grant wastes months. The cabinet\u2019s notes on a UK life-insurance payout and French inheritance tax<\/a> and on bank accounts of a deceased British resident are the place for those questions. The present file stops at the door of the notary\u2019s instrument: seisin, proof of heirship, registration of the foreign will, and the court\u2019s residual power when the heirs cannot be agreed or the connecting factor with France is contested.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

A UK grant of probate is a serious English court document. It is not a French acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9, it is not a European Certificate of Succession, and it does not, by itself, execute a UK will on property situated in France. Article 724 seises the heirs. Articles 730 and 730-1 organise the proof of that quality, and article 730-3 gives the notarial affidavit a presumption until proof to the contrary. Articles 1000 of the Civil Code and 655 of the General Tax Code still require a will made abroad to be registered before it can be executed on French assets, a filter the Cour de cassation accepted on 13 April 2022 even in the presence of a European certificate. Brexit has not created that filter. It has removed the temptation to believe that a European certificate issued in the United Kingdom would have papered over it. The British family whose notary has \u201crefused\u201d the grant should stop arguing about the dignity of the English court and start producing the French instruments: an apostilled, translated grant as a supporting paper, a registered will, and an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 requested by an ayant droit. If the notary still will not draw that act, another notary can be instructed, and in a genuine dispute the tribunal judiciaire can be seised. That is how the French house is unlocked. It is slower than sliding a London grant across a desk. It is the method the Civil Code actually writes.<\/p>\n

Need a quick opinion on your case.<\/h2>\n

Telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. We can read the notary\u2019s letter, the UK grant and the French will-registration file with you, and identify which instrument is actually missing.<\/p>\n

Call Ma\u00eetre Reda Kohen at +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a>. Write via the contact page of the firm<\/a>. The firm assists families in Paris and \u00cele-de-France, including before the tribunal judiciaire de Paris and the notaries of the Paris region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your UK grant of probate is not enough for French assets. Registration of the foreign will, acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9 and court remedies explained for British heirs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251031309,"featured_media":16352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kj_source_type":"","_kj_official_id":"","_kj_official_url":"","_kj_judilibre_id":"","_kj_jur":"","_kj_lieu":"","_kj_chambre":"","_kj_rg":"","_kj_date":"","activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[80312,80314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2117685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british-desk","category-decryptage"],"yoast_head":"\nFrench Notaire Refuses Your UK Grant of Probate After Brexit? 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