{"id":2123389,"date":"2026-09-17T15:10:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/2026\/09\/17\/british-english-will-french-house-forced-heirship-elect-law-challenge-brexit\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T15:10:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:10:52","slug":"british-english-will-french-house-forced-heirship-elect-law-challenge-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/en\/2026\/09\/17\/british-english-will-french-house-forced-heirship-elect-law-challenge-brexit\/","title":{"rendered":"British in France After Brexit: English Will, French House and Forced Heirship \u2014 Which Law Applies, How to Elect English Law and How to Challenge the Notaire"},"content":{"rendered":"

You have a house in France, a will drawn in England, and a notaire<\/em> (a French civil-law notary) who has just told your spouse that French forced heirship still applies. That conversation is more common since Brexit, not because the United Kingdom suddenly left the EU Succession Regulation \u2014 it never joined \u2014 but because French courts apply that Regulation as the law of the forum, English law may govern the estate if it is validly chosen, and a 2021 French statute can still claw assets in France back for the children.<\/p>\n

The crisis is precise. The notaire opens a file, asks for an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> (the notarial affidavit of heirship) and applies the r\u00e9serve h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire<\/em> (the reserved share that French law rings-fences for children). An English will leaving the house to the surviving spouse is treated as unable to override that share. Children from a first marriage instruct a lawyer. Time starts to run.<\/p>\n

This article is for the British owner, spouse or child who has been told that \u201cFrench law always governs a house in France\u201d. That was closer to the truth for deaths before 17 August 2015. It is not the connecting factor the Cour de cassation now applies under Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012. What follows sets out which law applies, how to elect English law, when the 2021 compensatory levy still bites, and how to challenge a notaire who ignores the election. It does not cover buying the house or creating a company. The sources are the Civil Code, the Regulation on EUR-Lex, and Cour de cassation decisions read in full for this piece.<\/p>\n

I. Which law applies to a British succession with a French house after Brexit?<\/h2>\n

A. Habitual residence in France or the UK: when does the EU Succession Regulation bite?<\/h3>\n

Two questions are constantly mixed up in the first meeting with the notaire. The first is which court or which notaire may deal with the file. The second is which law decides who inherits the French house. They are not the same question. Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012 of 4 July 2012 \u2014 often called Brussels IV, or the EU Succession Regulation \u2014 answers both, but in different chapters. France applies that Regulation. The United Kingdom does not.<\/p>\n

Recital 82 of the Regulation is unambiguous on the British side: \u201cthose Member States are not taking part in the adoption of this Regulation and are not bound by it or subject to its application.\u201d The \u201cthose Member States\u201d are the United Kingdom and Ireland, under Protocol No 21. Brexit did not create that opt-out. It was there from the start. What Brexit did change, for a British national, is something else: European citizenship dropped away, which matters later for the 2021 compensatory levy. It did not take France out of the Regulation, and it did not stop a French notaire or a French court from using the Regulation on a death connected with France.<\/p>\n

Article 83(1) of the Regulation states: \u201cThis Regulation shall apply to the succession of persons who die on or after 17 August 2015.\u201d A death before that date is still capable of being governed by the old French conflict rules, including article 3 of the Civil Code<\/a>, which still reads: \u201cLes immeubles, m\u00eame ceux poss\u00e9d\u00e9s par des \u00e9trangers, sont r\u00e9gis par la loi fran\u00e7aise.\u201d Immovables, even those owned by foreigners, are governed by French law. That sentence is about property as such. For successions opened from 17 August 2015, it is no longer the international key to \u201cwho inherits the house\u201d. Treating it as if it were is the most common error in a Franco-British file.<\/p>\n

The old case law shows how far that error can run if the death is still under the former system. In a decision of 4 July 2018, the Cour de cassation held that French immovables in a Moroccan estate remained subject to the conflict rule in article 3, paragraph 2, and that \u201cla d\u00e9volution successorale desdits immeubles devait tenir compte des r\u00e8gles de la r\u00e9serve h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire, laquelle, d’ordre public interne, ne pouvait \u00eatre \u00e9cart\u00e9e par des dispositions testamentaires \u00e9tablies selon la loi du domicile du d\u00e9funt et r\u00e9gissant son statut personnel\u201d (the devolution of those immovables had to take account of the reserved-share rules, which, as internal public policy, could not be displaced by testamentary provisions drawn under the law of the deceased\u2019s domicile governing personal status). The decision is Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, 4 July 2018, No 17-16.515<\/a>, published in the Bulletin. It is a decision about the old connecting factor and about internal public policy. It is not a decision that French reserved shares automatically override a valid choice of English law for a death in 2026.<\/p>\n

The same chamber had already shown, on 15 May 2018, how technical the old system of scission<\/em> (splitting movables and immovables) could become where houses sat in two countries and the deceased had two nationalities. It held: \u201clorsqu’une succession comporte des immeubles situ\u00e9s dans l’un et l’autre de deux pays dont le d\u00e9funt a la nationalit\u00e9, le renvoi op\u00e9r\u00e9 par la loi du lieu de situation de l’immeuble impose que le crit\u00e8re de rattachement \u00e0 la loi nationale du d\u00e9funt soit appr\u00e9ci\u00e9 selon les r\u00e8gles de conflit de lois pr\u00e9vues par la loi du pays renvoyant.\u201d Where an estate comprises immovables in each of two countries of nationality, the renvoi<\/em> (the bounce-back operated by the conflict rules of the place where the land sits) requires the national-law connecting factor to be assessed under the conflict rules of the referring country. The decision is Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, 15 May 2018, No 17-11.571<\/a>, also published in the Bulletin. Those files were fought under article 3 of the Civil Code. They are the world the Regulation was designed to leave behind for deaths from 17 August 2015.<\/p>\n

Under the Regulation, the default connecting factor is habitual residence, not the location of the house. Article 21(1) provides: \u201cUnless otherwise provided for in this Regulation, the law applicable to the succession as a whole shall be the law of the State in which the deceased had his habitual residence at the time of death.\u201d Article 20 adds that any law specified by the Regulation \u201cshall be applied whether or not it is the law of a Member State.\u201d English law can therefore be the law of the estate even though the United Kingdom is not bound by the Regulation. The house in Charente or in Paris does not, by its situation alone, drag the whole succession into French law.<\/p>\n

Jurisdiction follows a parallel but distinct rule. Article 4 provides: \u201cThe courts of the Member State in which the deceased had his habitual residence at the time of death shall have jurisdiction to rule on the succession as a whole.\u201d The Cour de cassation has applied that text strictly. In a decision of 29 May 2019 it recalled: \u201csont comp\u00e9tentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble d’une succession les juridictions de l’\u00c9tat membre dans lequel le d\u00e9funt avait sa r\u00e9sidence habituelle au moment de son d\u00e9c\u00e8s.\u201d The courts of the Member State in which the deceased had his habitual residence at the time of death have jurisdiction to rule on the succession as a whole. The same judgment, reading recitals 23 and 24, requires \u201cune \u00e9valuation d’ensemble des circonstances de la vie du d\u00e9funt au cours des ann\u00e9es pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant son d\u00e9c\u00e8s et au moment de son d\u00e9c\u00e8s, prenant en compte tous les \u00e9l\u00e9ments de fait pertinents, notamment la dur\u00e9e et la r\u00e9gularit\u00e9 de la pr\u00e9sence du d\u00e9funt dans l’\u00c9tat concern\u00e9 ainsi que les conditions et les raisons de cette pr\u00e9sence\u201d, an overall assessment of the circumstances of the deceased\u2019s life in the years before death and at death, taking into account all relevant facts, in particular the duration and regularity of presence and the conditions and reasons for that presence. Nationality or the location of the main assets may be a particular criterion only in complex cases. The decision is Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, 29 May 2019, No 18-13.383<\/a>, published in the Bulletin. A British owner who winters in France and summers in Hampshire, who keeps a GP in both countries, who has a carte Vitale<\/em> and a UK driving licence, cannot assume that \u201c183 days\u201d will settle habitual residence for succession. Tax residence, which is a different legal question, does not decide this point either.<\/p>\n

If habitual residence at death is in the United Kingdom, French courts are not necessarily shut out. Article 10 of the Regulation, headed \u201cSubsidiary jurisdiction\u201d, gives the courts of a Member State where estate assets are located jurisdiction over the succession as a whole where the deceased had that Member State\u2019s nationality at death, or, failing that, a previous habitual residence there, provided not more than five years have elapsed. Failing both, those courts still have jurisdiction to rule on the assets located in that Member State. The Cour de cassation applied article 10(1)(a) in a Franco-British configuration on 21 September 2022. The deceased was a French national who died in France on 3 September 2015. The court of appeal had held that his habitual residence was in the United Kingdom and had declined French jurisdiction. The Cour de cassation quoted article 10(1)(a): \u201clorsque la r\u00e9sidence habituelle du d\u00e9funt au moment du d\u00e9c\u00e8s n’est pas situ\u00e9e dans un \u00c9tat membre, les juridictions de l’\u00c9tat membre dans lequel sont situ\u00e9s des biens successoraux sont n\u00e9anmoins comp\u00e9tentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble de la succession dans la mesure o\u00f9 le d\u00e9funt poss\u00e9dait la nationalit\u00e9 de cet \u00c9tat membre au moment du d\u00e9c\u00e8s.\u201d It then held that the court of appeal, which had found a United Kingdom habitual residence without raising the subsidiary jurisdiction of its own motion, had violated that text, because the deceased had French nationality and assets in France. The decision is Cour de cassation, first civil chamber, 21 September 2022, No 19-15.438<\/a>, published in the Bulletin, after a preliminary reference of 18 November 2020 in the same case (No 19-15.438, 18 November 2020<\/a>) and the answer of the Court of Justice in case C-645\/20 of 7 April 2022.<\/p>\n

A British national who is not also French does not fit article 10(1)(a). Subsidiary jurisdiction over the whole estate then depends on a previous habitual residence in France within five years, under article 10(1)(b). If that too fails, article 10(2) still allows the French court to rule on the assets located in France \u2014 typically the house. That is why a notaire in the department where the house sits will almost always open a file, even if the deceased died in Kent. Opening a file is not the same thing as applying French forced heirship to the devolution.<\/p>\n

French domestic law still says, in article 720 of the Civil Code<\/a>, that \u201cLes successions s’ouvrent par la mort, au dernier domicile du d\u00e9funt\u201d (successions are opened by death, at the last domicile of the deceased). Domicile in that article is a French domestic concept. It is not a substitute for habitual residence under the Regulation, and it is not a substitute for English domicile of origin. A British owner who has a last French domicile for article 720 can still have had a United Kingdom habitual residence for articles 4 and 21, or the reverse. The notaire who elides the three ideas is not applying the texts.<\/p>\n

Article 21(2) of the Regulation is a narrow escape hatch: where it is clear from all the circumstances that, at death, the deceased was \u201cmanifestly more closely connected\u201d with another State, the law of that other State applies. It is an exception. It is not a tool for rewriting a life split between two countries after the event. Families who try to use it to pull a long English retirement back into French law, or a long French retirement back into English law, need more than a second home and a sentiment.<\/p>\n

B. How do I elect English law in my will after Brexit?<\/h3>\n

The useful British answer to French forced heirship is not a private promise, a letter to the children, or a trust recital that \u201cthis house is English\u201d. It is a choice of law under article 22 of the Regulation, the professio juris<\/em> (the election of the law of nationality). Article 22(1) provides: \u201cA person may choose as the law to govern his succession as a whole the law of the State whose nationality he possesses at the time of making the choice or at the time of death.\u201d A person with several nationalities \u201cmay choose the law of any of the States whose nationality he possesses at the time of making the choice or at the time of death.\u201d A British citizen may elect the law of the United Kingdom. A dual British-French or British-Irish national may elect French law or Irish law instead. Brexit did not remove British nationality as a connecting factor for article 22. The election does not require the United Kingdom to be a Member State. Article 20, already quoted, applies the designated law whether or not it is the law of a Member State.<\/p>\n

The form of the election is not optional window-dressing. Article 22(2) states: \u201cThe choice shall be made expressly in a declaration in the form of a disposition of property upon death or shall be demonstrated by the terms of such a disposition.\u201d Article 22(3) adds that the substantive validity of the act by which the choice was made is governed by the chosen law. Article 22(4) requires any modification or revocation of the choice to meet the form required for modifying or revoking a disposition of property upon death. A conversation with the notaire is not a choice. A side letter is not a choice. A will that merely \u201cleaves everything to my wife\u201d without identifying the law that is supposed to govern the succession as a whole is a fragile demonstration. The safer instrument is an express clause: the testator, a British national, chooses the law of England and Wales \u2014 or of Scotland, or of Northern Ireland \u2014 to govern the succession as a whole, including assets situated in France.<\/p>\n

That last precision matters because the United Kingdom is a State with several territorial units. Article 36 of the Regulation deals with States that comprise several territorial units, each with its own succession rules. The internal conflict-of-laws rules of that State determine the unit. In the absence of such rules, a reference to nationality is construed as a reference to the territorial unit with which the deceased had the closest connection. A will that says only \u201cthe law of the United Kingdom\u201d invites an argument about England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland, unlike England and Wales, still knows legal rights of a kind that English law does not. The election should name the unit.<\/p>\n

Why elect at all, if habitual residence is already in England? Because article 21 designates the law of the State of habitual residence, and article 34 then opens a renvoi<\/em> (a reference on) where that law is the law of a third State. Article 34(1) provides that applying the law of a third State \u201cshall mean the application of the rules of law in force in that State, including its rules of private international law in so far as those rules make a renvoi\u201d to the law of a Member State, or to the law of another third State which would apply its own law. If English private international law would send an immovable situated in France back to French law, a death governed only by article 21 can bounce the French house onto French forced heirship even though the deceased lived in England. Article 34(2) then states: \u201cNo renvoi shall apply with respect to the laws referred to in Article 21(2), Article 22, Article 27, point (b) of Article 28 and Article 30.\u201d A valid article 22 election is what cuts off that bounce-back. That is the legal reason to elect even if you think you \u201clive in England anyway\u201d.<\/p>\n

The election governs the succession as a whole. Article 23(1) says so in terms: \u201cThe law determined pursuant to Article 21 or Article 22 shall govern the succession as a whole.\u201d Article 23(2)(h) includes, in that whole, \u201cthe disposable part of the estate, the reserved shares and other restrictions on the disposal of property upon death as well as claims which persons close to the deceased may have against the estate or the heirs.\u201d If English law is validly chosen, it is English law that says whether children have a reserved share, not article 913 of the Civil Code as the succession statute. The French house is inside that whole. The old scission between movables and immovables is not the Regulation\u2019s method.<\/p>\n

What the election does not do is equally important. It does not choose an English court. Article 5 of the Regulation allows a choice-of-court agreement only where the law chosen under article 22 is the law of a Member State. English law is not the law of a Member State. Parties cannot, under article 5, confer exclusive jurisdiction on the High Court in London for a French house. French courts may still have jurisdiction under articles 4 or 10. They then apply English law if the election is valid. That is the opposite of the sentence many British owners hear: \u201cIf you want English law, you must probate in England.\u201d You may need an English grant for English assets. You do not, by electing English law, take the French house out of the French court\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n

Nor does the election, by itself, make an English-form will a French-form will. Article 970 of the Civil Code<\/a> provides: \u201cLe testament olographe ne sera point valable s’il n’est \u00e9crit en entier, dat\u00e9 et sign\u00e9 de la main du testateur : il n’est assujetti \u00e0 aucune autre forme.\u201d A holographic will is not valid unless it is written in full, dated and signed in the testator\u2019s hand; it is subject to no other form. A typed English will, signed with two witnesses, is not that instrument. Article 971<\/a> provides: \u201cLe testament par acte public est re\u00e7u par deux notaires ou par un notaire assist\u00e9 de deux t\u00e9moins.\u201d A public will is received by two notaries, or by one notary assisted by two witnesses. An English will is not, without more, that instrument either. Article 24 of the Regulation then separates the admissibility and substantive validity of a disposition of property upon death from the law that will later govern the succession, and allows a person to choose, for that instrument, a law that could have been chosen under article 22. Formal validity of a foreign will is a further question. Do not assume the notaire will treat a solicitors\u2019 will printed in London as a French testament. Many British owners therefore also execute a French authentic will, or a bilingual instrument received by a notaire, which contains the article 22 election and deals with the French house. The English will can remain for English assets. The two documents must not contradict each other on the choice of law or on the identity of the beneficiary of the house.<\/p>\n

Article 24(1) looks at the law that would have applied to the succession if the person had died on the day the will was made. A British owner who made a will in 2012, before the Regulation applied, is not necessarily unprotected: article 83(2) to (4) saves certain pre-17 August 2015 choices and dispositions if they meet the Regulation\u2019s conditions or the private international law then in force. Article 83(4) is particularly useful: if a disposition of property upon death was made before 17 August 2015 in accordance with a law the deceased could have chosen under the Regulation, \u201cthat law shall be deemed to have been chosen as the law applicable to the succession.\u201d An older English will that was already drawn under English law because the testator was British may, on the right facts, be treated as a choice. \u201cMay\u201d is not \u201cwill\u201d. A 2012 will that never mentions governing law, and that sits next to a later French will silent on the point, is a dispute, not a solution. The cheap correction is a new instrument that recites nationality, names the territorial unit, elects that law for the succession as a whole, and is executed in a form the French notaire can receive or recognise.<\/p>\n

Public policy remains a backstop, not a trump card. Article 35 of the Regulation provides: \u201cThe application of a provision of the law of any State specified by this Regulation may be refused only if such application is manifestly incompatible with the public policy (ordre public) of the forum.\u201d The adverb is \u201cmanifestly\u201d. Recital 58 of the Regulation presents that exception as one for exceptional circumstances. The 2018 decision in No 17-16.515, quoted above, described the reserved share as \u201cd’ordre public interne\u201d \u2014 internal public policy \u2014 in a case still attached to article 3 of the Civil Code. Internal public policy is not the same threshold as article 35. A notaire who says \u201creserved shares are always public policy, so English law is ignored\u201d is collapsing those two ideas. Whether a given application of English law would be manifestly incompatible with French international public policy is a question for a court on concrete facts, not a rubber stamp at the first appointment.<\/p>\n

II. The French notaire still applies forced heirship: reserved shares, the 2021 levy and how to challenge<\/h2>\n

A. How much must go to the children, and when can they still take French assets under English law?<\/h3>\n

When French law is the law of the succession \u2014 because habitual residence at death was in France and there was no valid election, or because an election failed \u2014 the reserved share is not a custom of the profession. It is statute. Article 912 of the Civil Code<\/a> provides: \u201cLa r\u00e9serve h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire est la part des biens et droits successoraux dont la loi assure la d\u00e9volution libre de charges \u00e0 certains h\u00e9ritiers dits r\u00e9servataires, s’ils sont appel\u00e9s \u00e0 la succession et s’ils l’acceptent. La quotit\u00e9 disponible est la part des biens et droits successoraux qui n’est pas r\u00e9serv\u00e9e par la loi et dont le d\u00e9funt a pu disposer librement par des lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9s.\u201d The reserved share is the portion of the estate\u2019s property and rights whose devolution the law secures, free of charges, to certain heirs called reserved heirs, if they are called to the succession and if they accept it. The quotit\u00e9 disponible<\/em> (the disposable portion) is what is not reserved, and what the deceased could give away by gifts or by will.<\/p>\n

Article 913<\/a>, in the version in force since 1 November 2021, fixes the fractions: \u201cLes lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9s, soit par actes entre vifs, soit par testament, ne pourront exc\u00e9der la moiti\u00e9 des biens du disposant, s’il ne laisse \u00e0 son d\u00e9c\u00e8s qu’un enfant ; le tiers, s’il laisse deux enfants ; le quart, s’il en laisse trois ou un plus grand nombre.\u201d Gifts or wills may not exceed one half of the estate if there is one child, one third if there are two, one quarter if there are three or more. One child therefore has a reserved half; two children share a reserved two thirds; three or more share a reserved three quarters. The surviving spouse is not in that list. If there is no descendant, article 914-1<\/a> provides: \u201cLes lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9s, par actes entre vifs ou par testament, ne pourront exc\u00e9der les trois quarts des biens si, \u00e0 d\u00e9faut de descendant, le d\u00e9funt laisse un conjoint survivant, non divorc\u00e9.\u201d Gifts or wills may not exceed three quarters if, in the absence of a descendant, the deceased leaves a surviving spouse who is not divorced. The spouse\u2019s reserved share in that configuration is one quarter. Where there are children, the spouse\u2019s rights are a different set of rules \u2014 usufruct or ownership in competition with the children \u2014 which is the subject of the article on the surviving spouse\u2019s rights in a French house<\/a>. They are not a reserved fraction under article 913.<\/p>\n

The reserved share is calculated on a mass, not on the house in isolation. Article 922<\/a> opens: \u201cLa r\u00e9duction se d\u00e9termine en formant une masse de tous les biens existant au d\u00e9c\u00e8s du donateur ou testateur.\u201d Reduction is determined by forming a mass of all property existing at the death of the donor or testator. Lifetime gifts are then notionally added back, on the rules that follow in the same article, including their value at the opening of the succession. A British owner who emptied a French account in favour of one child five years before death, or who sold the house to a child at an undervalue, is still inside that mass if French law governs. The will that \u201cleaves the house to my wife\u201d is only one piece. The gifts are another.<\/p>\n

Heirs designated by law are seised of the estate as of right. Article 724 of the Civil Code<\/a> 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 law are seised as of right of the deceased\u2019s property, rights and actions. Universal legatees and donees are seised on the conditions of Title II. That seisin is why a child can appear in the notaire\u2019s office with a claim before any English grant of probate has been extracted. It is also why a spouse who is only a legatee under an English will, in a file still treated as a French-law succession, does not stand in the same starting position as a reserved heir.<\/p>\n

The 2021 paragraph of article 913 is the provision that still frightens a well-drawn election of English law. After the fractions, the article now states: \u201cLorsque le d\u00e9funt ou au moins l’un de ses enfants est, au moment du d\u00e9c\u00e8s, ressortissant d’un Etat membre de l’Union europ\u00e9enne ou y r\u00e9side habituellement et lorsque la loi \u00e9trang\u00e8re applicable \u00e0 la succession ne permet aucun m\u00e9canisme r\u00e9servataire protecteur des enfants, chaque enfant ou ses h\u00e9ritiers ou ses ayants cause peuvent effectuer un pr\u00e9l\u00e8vement compensatoire sur les biens existants situ\u00e9s en France au jour du d\u00e9c\u00e8s, de fa\u00e7on \u00e0 \u00eatre r\u00e9tablis dans les droits r\u00e9servataires que leur octroie la loi fran\u00e7aise, dans la limite de ceux-ci.\u201d Where, at the time of death, the deceased or at least one of his children is a national of an EU Member State or habitually resides there, and where the foreign law applicable to the succession allows no reserved-share mechanism protecting children, each child \u2014 or that child\u2019s heirs or successors \u2014 may make a compensatory levy on the property existing and situated in France on the day of death, so as to be restored to the reserved rights that French law grants them, within the limit of those rights.<\/p>\n

Four conditions have to be read together. First, French law is not the law of the succession; a foreign law is. That is the whole point of a successful article 22 election. Second, that foreign law \u201cne permet aucun m\u00e9canisme r\u00e9servataire protecteur des enfants\u201d: it allows no reserved-share mechanism protecting children. Whether the law of England and Wales meets that description is a characterisation for the French court. England and Wales do not ring-fence a fixed reserved fraction of the estate for adult children in the manner of articles 912 and 913. That is the comparison the 2021 paragraph invites. It is not a statement that English law leaves dependants without any claim in England, and it is not a statement about Scotland. Third, at death, either the deceased or at least one child is an EU national or habitually resides in an EU Member State. Fourth, the levy is confined to property existing and situated in France on the day of death. It is not a worldwide clawback of a UK pension pot or a house in Surrey.<\/p>\n

Brexit sits inside the third condition. A British national is no longer \u201cressortissant d’un Etat membre de l’Union europ\u00e9enne\u201d. Nationality alone, after Brexit, does not open the levy. Habitual residence can. A British testator who was habitually resident in France at death satisfies \u201cy r\u00e9side habituellement\u201d even without EU citizenship. A British testator who died habitually resident in Devon, with all children in the United Kingdom and no EU nationality in the family, does not meet that limb. A British testator who died in Devon but left one child living in Paris may meet it through the child. Dual French-British children meet it through nationality. These are not moral evaluations. They are the statutory switches. Families who skip them, and who speak only of \u201cforced heirship in France\u201d, miss the 2021 text.<\/p>\n

The levy restores reserved rights \u201cdans la limite de ceux-ci\u201d and only against French-situs assets existing at death. A house that was sold the year before, with the price sitting in a UK account, is not \u201cbiens existants situ\u00e9s en France au jour du d\u00e9c\u00e8s\u201d. A house still in the deceased\u2019s name is. Furniture, a French bank account, a French life policy payable to the estate rather than to a named beneficiary, may be. Each item needs a situs analysis. The children cannot, under this paragraph, rebuild a French reserved share out of English assets. They can, if the conditions are met, take a slice of the French house or of other French assets even though English law governs the succession. That is why an election of English law is necessary and why it is not always sufficient if the family still has a French-situs estate and an EU habitual residence or an EU nationality in the relevant persons.<\/p>\n

None of this is the same problem as dying without a will. Intestacy under French law, with its separate shares for the spouse and the children, is the subject of the article on a British death in France with no will<\/a>. The present dispute is the opposite: there is a will, often an English will, and the question is whether that will is allowed to do what it says with the French house. Mixing the two files is how a spouse is talked into accepting an intestacy share that the will had already displaced.<\/p>\n

B. Documents, deadlines and the court if the notaire ignores the English will<\/h3>\n

The first document in the French file is not the English grant. It is the death certificate, the will or wills, proof of nationality, proof of habitual residence, and the family book or civil-status records that identify the spouse and the children. The notaire will want a certified copy of the English will, a translation into French by a sworn translator, and, where the will comes from the United Kingdom, the formalities that make a public document usable in France. If there is also a French authentic will, that instrument must be produced at once. Hiding it, or producing it after an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> has already named different heirs, is how the file becomes a litigation.<\/p>\n

The notaire has a statutory duty to reserved heirs when French reserved rights are in play. Article 921 of the Civil Code<\/a>, in the version in force since 1 November 2021, first confines the action in reduction to those for whom the law creates the reserved share, their heirs or successors: \u201cLa r\u00e9duction des dispositions entre vifs ne pourra \u00eatre demand\u00e9e que par ceux au profit desquels la loi fait la r\u00e9serve, par leurs h\u00e9ritiers ou ayants cause : les donataires, les l\u00e9gataires, ni les cr\u00e9anciers du d\u00e9funt ne pourront demander cette r\u00e9duction, ni en profiter.\u201d Donees, legatees and creditors of the deceased cannot demand that reduction, nor benefit from it. The same article then sets the time limit: \u201cLe d\u00e9lai de prescription de l’action en r\u00e9duction est fix\u00e9 \u00e0 cinq ans \u00e0 compter de l’ouverture de la succession, ou \u00e0 deux ans \u00e0 compter du jour o\u00f9 les h\u00e9ritiers ont eu connaissance de l’atteinte port\u00e9e \u00e0 leur r\u00e9serve, sans jamais pouvoir exc\u00e9der dix ans \u00e0 compter du d\u00e9c\u00e8s.\u201d The limitation period for the action in reduction is five years from the opening of the succession, or two years from the day the heirs knew of the infringement of their reserved share, without ever exceeding ten years from death. Finally, the notaire who finds that reserved rights may be affected \u201cinforme chaque h\u00e9ritier concern\u00e9 et connu, individuellement et, le cas \u00e9ch\u00e9ant, avant tout partage, de son droit de demander la r\u00e9duction des lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9s qui exc\u00e8dent la quotit\u00e9 disponible\u201d: he informs each heir concerned and known, individually and, where appropriate, before any partition, of the right to seek reduction of gifts that exceed the disposable portion.<\/p>\n

Those sentences cut both ways. A child who wants the reserved share, or the 2021 levy, cannot sleep on the file. Five years from opening, or two years from knowledge, capped at ten years from death, is the statutory clock for reduction. A spouse who wants the English will to be applied cannot treat the notaire\u2019s first letter as a final judgment, but also cannot ignore a draft acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> that already lists the children as reserved heirs of a French-law estate. Signing a partition, or an agreement that \u201ctakes account of the r\u00e9serve\u201d, without a reservation of rights, is how an election of English law dies in practice. Article 724 seisin does not require the spouse to accept a characterisation that the Regulation does not impose.<\/p>\n

If the dispute is the notaire\u2019s refusal to give effect to the article 22 election, the remedy is not a complaint to the Law Society in London. It is a claim before the tribunal judiciaire<\/em> (the ordinary first-instance court) with territorial jurisdiction under the Regulation and under French procedure. Where habitual residence at death was in France, article 4 of the Regulation points to the French courts for the succession as a whole. In Paris, that is the tribunal judiciaire de Paris. Where habitual residence was in the United Kingdom, article 10 may still give the French court jurisdiction over the French house, and sometimes over the estate as a whole if the five-year previous-residence limb is met. The 2022 decision in No 19-15.438, already cited, shows that French judges must consider subsidiary jurisdiction of their own motion in the configurations the Regulation provides. The same case began as an application, in the form of r\u00e9f\u00e9r\u00e9<\/em> (the urgent procedure), for the appointment of a mandataire successoral<\/em> (an estate administrator). That route remains available where the family is deadlocked and the house cannot be insured, let or sold.<\/p>\n

The claim should ask for a finding on the applicable law first, not for a debate about furniture. The court will need: the will containing the election, or the terms said to demonstrate it; proof of British nationality at the date of the choice or at death; evidence of habitual residence, on the overall assessment described in No 18-13.383; a schedule of assets and of their situs on the day of death; the identity and residence of each child, because article 913\u2019s last paragraph turns on those facts; and any later French will. If children rely on the compensatory levy, they must prove the EU nationality or EU habitual residence limb and the absence of a reserved-share mechanism in the foreign law. If the spouse relies on the election, the spouse must prove the election itself. Each side has a different burden. A bundle that only contains an English grant of probate, without the will\u2019s governing-law clause and without residence evidence, is not a succession file.<\/p>\n

\u00cele-de-France practice has local edges that do not change the texts but do change the diary. A house in Paris is received by a Paris notaire and, in a dispute, by the tribunal judiciaire de Paris. A house in Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis or Val-de-Marne follows the court and the notaire of that department. Holiday houses in Brittany or the Dordogne are not \u201cParis files\u201d merely because the family instructed a Paris solicitor. The Regulation\u2019s habitual-residence test can still place jurisdiction in Paris if that is where the deceased actually lived, even if the only immovable is elsewhere in France. The reverse is also true. Do not pick the court by the location of the English solicitor.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, English assets follow English administration. Nothing in the Regulation requires a French notaire to distribute a UK bank account. Nothing in an English grant requires a French land registrar to ignore a valid election or, conversely, to ignore a well-founded article 913 levy. Parallel files are normal. Contradiction between them is the risk. If the English executors assent the French house to the spouse while a French child has already issued an action in reduction or a levy claim, the later French judgment will not vanish because probate was extracted first. If the French notaire prepares a partition on the footing of article 913 while an article 22 election is still live, signing that partition is the error that is hardest to unwind.<\/p>\n

A British owner who is still alive has a narrower, cheaper dispute than the heirs. The work is to execute a will that elects the law of the correct territorial unit, in a form a French notaire can receive or recognise, to keep proof of nationality, to avoid a second will that silently reintroduces French law, and to record where life is actually lived. A British owner who has already died leaves the family with article 921\u2019s clock, with article 10\u2019s jurisdiction map, and with a notaire who may be applying a reflex \u2014 \u201cthe house is in France, so the r\u00e9serve applies\u201d \u2014 that the Cour de cassation no longer treats as the connecting factor for deaths from 17 August 2015. Challenge that reflex with the texts, not with indignation.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

A French house does not, after 17 August 2015, write its own succession law. Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012, which France applies and which the United Kingdom never joined, points first to habitual residence and then, if the deceased so elects, to the law of nationality. A British national can choose English law, or Scottish law, for the succession as a whole, including the French house. That choice must appear in a disposition of property upon death. It cuts off renvoi<\/em>. It does not choose an English court, it does not turn a typed English will into a holographic French will, and it does not erase the 2021 compensatory levy on assets situated in France where the deceased or a child is an EU national or habitually resident in the European Union and the foreign law allows no reserved-share mechanism for children.<\/p>\n

The reserved share itself, when French law governs, is a statutory fraction under articles 912, 913 and 914-1, calculated on the article 922 mass, with an action in reduction that article 921 times strictly. The Cour de cassation has, in No 18-13.383 and No 19-15.438, shown how habitual residence and subsidiary jurisdiction actually work in files with a United Kingdom connection. It has, in No 17-16.515, described the reserved share as internal public policy under the old immovable rule. Those decisions are not interchangeable. A family that treats them as a single slogan \u2014 \u201cFrance always protects the children\u201d \u2014 will misread both the election and the levy.<\/p>\n

If the notaire has already drafted an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> on the wrong law, the next step is a dated written reservation of rights, a complete bundle on nationality, residence and wills, and, where the deadlock holds, a claim before the tribunal judiciaire, in Paris or in the department of the house according to the Regulation, before article 921\u2019s periods expire. The cheaper step, for an owner who is still alive, is to make the election properly rather than to hope that an English will \u201cmust be obvious\u201d.<\/p>\n

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

If you have just been told that French forced heirship overrides your English will, that the notaire will not accept an election of English law, or that children may take a compensatory levy on the French house after Brexit, the firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a> or write via our contact page<\/a>. The firm advises clients in Paris and \u00cele-de-France as well as British owners and heirs throughout France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A British will leaving a French house to a spouse can collide with forced heirship. After Brexit, which law applies, how to elect English law, and how to challenge the notaire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251031309,"featured_media":16476,"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-2123389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british-desk","category-decryptage"],"yoast_head":"\nBritish in France After Brexit: English Will, French House and Forced Heirship \u2014 Which Law Applies, How to Elect English Law and How to Challenge the Notaire - Ma\u00eetre Reda Kohen, Real Estate and Business Law Attorney in Paris<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/en\/2026\/09\/17\/british-english-will-french-house-forced-heirship-elect-law-challenge-brexit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"British in France After Brexit: English Will, French House and Forced Heirship \u2014 Which Law Applies, How to Elect English Law and How to Challenge the Notaire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A British will leaving a French house to a spouse can collide with forced heirship. 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