You bought the stone house in the Dordogne, the village house in the Luberon or the flat near the Paris suburbs ten years ago, wrote an English will with your solicitor in Kent, and assumed the matter was settled. Your will leaves everything to your spouse, then to the children equally, names your eldest as executor, and your solicitor told you English law leaves you free to benefit whoever you wish. Since Brexit, you live in France for most of the year on a withdrawal agreement card or a long-stay visa, pay French income tax as a French resident, and visit the grandchildren in Manchester twice a year. Then a neighbour mentions that in France children cannot be disinherited, the notaire (the French public officer handling conveyancing and successions) asks whether your will chooses English law, and you discover that the document in a drawer in Tunbridge Wells may not do what you think once a French house and French tax are involved. This guide explains, entirely from the British reader’s point of view and in plain English, which law governs your succession when you die resident in France, whether you can choose English law to keep your freedom to decide, what the French forced heirship rules still take for your children even when English law applies, how to write a will that works in both countries without one cancelling the other, what French succession tax your heirs will actually pay on the French house, and how to challenge a refusal or a tax bill when the administration gets it wrong. Every decisive legal point is tied to the exact text in force, quoted word for word and linked to the official source, so you can verify each statement with your notaire before you sign anything.<\/p>\n
The starting point surprises many British residents. Since 17 August 2015 a single European regulation, Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012 on jurisdiction and applicable law in successions, decides which country’s succession law applies when you die, and France applies it even though the United Kingdom never took part in it and Brexit changed nothing about that. The default rule is habitual residence: the law of the country where you were habitually resident at death governs your succession as a whole,French house, English bank account, Spanish shares and all. If you retired to the Lot, registered with the local mairie (the town hall), joined the French health system, file your worldwide income in France and spend ten months a year there, a French court will treat France as your habitual residence and French succession law will apply by default, including the forced shares for children described below. The Cour de cassation (France’s supreme court for civil matters) treats that residence test as a full factual assessment of the years before death, looking at the duration, regularity, conditions and reasons of presence, as shown in a 2019 ruling where three siblings fought over whether their father, who died in New York leaving a will that disinherited one daughter, had been habitually resident in Paris: \u00ab Z… H… est d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 le […], \u00e0 New York, laissant trois enfants, M…, O… et A…, en l’\u00e9tat d’un testament exh\u00e9r\u00e9dant sa fille O… (Mme H…) \u00bb (Cass. Civ. 1re, 29 May 2019, No 18-13.383<\/a>). The lesson for British families is direct: where you actually live your daily life matters more than the passport you hold or the flag on the will folder.<\/p>\n But the same regulation gives you an escape route made for British nationals, and it is the single most valuable clause a British resident in France can put in a will. Article 22, headed Choice of law, allows a person to choose the law of the State whose nationality he or she holds, either when the choice is made or at death, to govern the succession as a whole (see Article 22(1) of Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012, EUR-Lex<\/a>). A British citizen, even one who has lived in France for twenty years and holds a French carte de s\u00e9jour (residence card), can therefore choose English law, or Scots law for a Scottish national, to govern the whole succession. Dual British-French nationals have the same option either way, since a person with several nationalities may choose any of them. The choice must be written into a will or equivalent disposition: it has to be made expressly in a declaration in the form of a disposition of property upon death, or at least be clearly shown by the terms of that disposition (see Article 22(2) of Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012, EUR-Lex<\/a>). In practice that means one clear sentence in the will stating that you choose the law of England and Wales to govern your succession, a formula French notaires call the professio juris (the written choice of the applicable law). Without that sentence, habitual residence decides; with it, English law decides the shares, the validity of gifts and the administration, and the French court must apply it. Ask your notaire to check that every will you sign, English and French, contains the identical choice clause with the identical named legal system, because a will that says English law while a later French will says nothing can create exactly the conflict the clause was meant to prevent.<\/p>\n Brexit did not remove this mechanism, but it changed the litigation landscape around it in ways British families feel directly. Before 2021 an English grant of probate (the court document confirming the executor’s authority) circulated easily and French notaires routinely worked with English executors; today the executor named in your English will, usually called the personal representative, has no automatic status before the French land registry and the French bank holding the deceased’s accounts, and must prove authority through French channels, often with sworn translations, an apostille (the international stamp authenticating a public document) and sometimes a French court order. Jurisdiction fights between London and Paris have grown sharper for the same reason, and the French courts now reason carefully about which court hears the succession when the deceased split life between the two countries. In a 2022 ruling the Cour de cassation quashed a Versailles appeal decision that had declared the French courts incompetent over the estate of a French national who died in France leaving a British-based widow, holding that the subsidiary jurisdiction rule of the regulation required the French courts to hear the case: \u00ab CASSE ET ANNULE, en toutes ses dispositions, l’arr\u00eat rendu le 21 f\u00e9vrier 2019, entre les parties, par la cour d’appel de Versailles ; DIT n’y avoir lieu \u00e0 renvoi ; Dit que les juridictions fran\u00e7aises sont comp\u00e9tentes pour statuer sur l’ensemble de la succession de [Y] [H] \u00bb (Cass. Civ. 1re, 21 September 2022, No 19-15.438<\/a>). For a British reader the message is practical rather than theoretical: expect the French courts and the French notaire to handle the French house, expect questions about habitual residence and about your choice-of-law clause at the first meeting, and bring proof of your life pattern, tax residence notices, health registration and travel records, so the file starts on the right footing instead of with a six-month argument about which court is competent.<\/p>\n Here is the point that shocks British testators most, and it applies even when you have validly chosen English law. English law lets you leave your estate to anyone, including leaving a child with nothing. French law does not. It reserves a fixed fraction of your property for your children, called the r\u00e9serve h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire (the forced heirship share), and only the remainder, called the quotit\u00e9 disponible (the freely disposable share), can go to your spouse beyond their rights, to a stepchild, a friend or a charity. The Civil Code defines the mechanism in these terms: \u00ab La 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. \u00bb (Article 912 of the Civil Code<\/a>). The fractions are fixed by statute: \u00ab Les 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. \u00bb (Article 913 of the Civil Code<\/a>). One child means half the estate is reserved, two children mean two thirds, three or more mean three quarters, and gifts made during lifetime count towards the calculation, so a large lifetime gift to one child can already exhaust what you thought the will could freely give to your spouse. The official public guidance confirms the structure in plain terms and is worth reading alongside your will project (service-public.fr: rules on inheriting<\/a>; service-public.fr: making a will<\/a>).<\/p>\n Since a 2021 reform, France enforces this protection even against foreign laws that know no forced share, which is exactly the situation of a British resident who chose English law. Where the deceased or at least one child was, at death, a national of or habitually resident in a European Union Member State, and the applicable foreign law provides no protective reserved-share mechanism for the children, each child may take a compensatory levy on property situated in France so as to recover the reserved rights French law would have given. The statute states: \u00ab Lorsque 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. \u00bb (Article 913, second paragraph, of the Civil Code<\/a>). Read that twice if you have children from a first marriage and intended to leave the French house entirely to your second spouse: the child can enforce the levy directly against the French house, and the surviving spouse who received the whole property under an English-law will can be forced to compensate or share. Before this reform the courts had already shown how seriously France treats the boundary between foreign testamentary freedom and French property, for instance in a 2018 ruling where a Moroccan will made before religious notaries in Casablanca had to be executed within the limit of the disposable share over the French immovable property (Cass. Civ. 1re, 4 July 2018, No 17-16.515<\/a>). The practical consequence is that an English-law choice controls the administration and interpretation of your succession, but it no longer guarantees that a disinherited child gets nothing from the French house. If protecting your spouse means giving them the whole house, you must achieve it inside the disposable share, with gifts between spouses, life insurance outside the estate, or ownership structures set up during lifetime, and not by a will clause that French law will simply cut back through the action en r\u00e9duction (the court claim that reduces excessive gifts to restore the reserved shares).<\/p>\n Blended families and unmarried partners face the sharpest version of this problem, so plan for it explicitly. A spouse married under any matrimonial regime keeps strong protection, discussed in Part II, but a cohabiting partner, however long the relationship, inherits nothing without a will, and even with a will can only receive within the disposable share while paying the heaviest tax rate of 60 per cent after a tiny allowance, as explained below. Stepchildren whom you never adopted are legal strangers for succession purposes: they are not reserved heirs, which helps the disposable share calculation, but they are taxed as strangers too. Children from a previous relationship are reserved heirs whatever your will says and whatever promises were made at the kitchen table, and they can bring the reduction claim for years after death. If your family includes minors, remember that gifts and will provisions for minors typically need the other parent’s or the family council’s acceptance and the supervision of the juge des tutelles (the guardianship judge) at the succession stage, which slows everything down. The honest sequence is therefore: count the children including those of any previous union, compute the reserved fraction, verify that what you want to give your spouse or partner fits inside the disposable share, and only then draft the will, rather than drafting a generous English-style will and discovering at the notaire’s office that half of it cannot survive contact with Article 913.<\/p>\n Start from the legal definition, because it tells you how little formality France requires and how much precision it rewards. French law defines the will functionally: \u00ab Le testament est un acte par lequel le testateur dispose, pour le temps o\u00f9 il n’existera plus, de tout ou partie de ses biens ou de ses droits et qu’il peut r\u00e9voquer. \u00bb (Article 895 of the Civil Code<\/a>). A revocable instrument disposing of property after death: your English will already meets that definition, and France will in principle recognise a will validly made under English formalities. The danger is never validity in the abstract; it is contradiction between two valid documents. The classic British trap is the revocation clause. Every standard English will begins by revoking all previous wills, so the new French will your notaire drafts for the Dordogne house silently revokes the English will covering everything else, or the updated English will signed on a trip home revokes the French will holding the choice-of-law clause and the spouse protection gifts. The fix is simple and must be explicit: each will must state precisely which property and which country it covers, confirm that it does not revoke the other named will, and repeat the identical choice of English law. Mirror wills for couples need the same treatment, with each spouse’s will cross-referring without creating mutual binding obligations that English law would treat as mutual wills (wills that contractually bind the survivor) while French law ignores the concept. Keep the originals traceable: the English original with the solicitor or the Probate Service, the French original or its authentic copy with the notaire and, ideally, registration in the French central wills register, the Fichier central des dispositions de derni\u00e8res volont\u00e9s, so the notaire settling the succession finds it in days rather than months.<\/p>\n For the French side, choose the form deliberately with your notaire. The cheapest and most common form is the holographic will, the testament olographe: \u00ab Le 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. \u00bb (Article 970 of the Civil Code<\/a>). Entirely handwritten, dated and signed, no other formality: attractive, but every omitted date, every typed paragraph, every ambiguous crossing-out is a future lawsuit, and British testators who think in English legal phrases often produce French texts a court must interpret. The safer form for a British resident with a house, children of different unions or a spouse to protect is the authentic will, the testament authentique received by the notaire: \u00ab Le testament par acte public est re\u00e7u par deux notaires ou par un notaire assist\u00e9 de deux t\u00e9moins. \u00bb (Article 971 of the Civil Code<\/a>). Dictated to the notaire, written down, read back and signed in the presence of witnesses, it is checked on the spot for reserved-share compliance, kept in the notaire’s records so it cannot be lost, and far harder to challenge on capacity or forgery grounds. Whichever form you choose, add the three clauses that do the heavy lifting for British families: first, the express choice of the law of England and Wales under Article 22 of the succession regulation; second, the gift between spouses within the maximum the law allows where there are children, since a married person with descendants \u00ab pourra disposer en faveur de l’autre \u00e9poux, soit de la propri\u00e9t\u00e9 de ce dont il pourrait disposer en faveur d’un \u00e9tranger, soit d’un quart de ses biens en propri\u00e9t\u00e9 et des trois autres quarts en usufruit, soit encore de la totalit\u00e9 de ses biens en usufruit seulement \u00bb (Article 1094-1 of the Civil Code<\/a>), meaning the spouse can receive the disposable share in full ownership, or one quarter in ownership plus three quarters in usufruit (the lifetime right to use the property and take its income), or the whole estate in usufruit, which in practice lets the widow or widower stay in the French house for life while the children hold the bare ownership; third, the appointment of an executeur testamentaire (the French will executor whose powers are narrower and shorter than an English executor’s) alongside confirmation of the English executor for the English assets, with a named French-speaking contact, so the banque (the bank) and the land registry know whom to deal with on each side of the Channel. Review both wills every three to five years and after every birth, death, marriage, divorce, house purchase or move between tax residences, because a will drafted when you were UK-resident with one house can misfire badly once you are French-resident with two.<\/p>\n Two lifetime complements complete the protection, and both should be discussed with the notaire before the will is signed rather than after. The first is the marriage regime and any change of r\u00e9gime matrimonial (the set of rules governing property between spouses): British couples married without a contract who settled in France are often surprised to learn that French private international law may already treat them as married under a French regime, and switching to a community with full attribution to the survivor can protect the spouse more powerfully than any will, though it directly affects the children’s reserved shares and needs their consent in some configurations. The second is assurance-vie (the French life-insurance savings contract that pays a named beneficiary outside the succession): properly set up, its capital passes outside the estate to the spouse or partner within generous tax allowances, which makes it the standard tool for protecting an unmarried partner or topping up a spouse beyond the disposable share. Neither replaces the will; both shape what the will has left to distribute. And a final warning for landlords: if you let the French house furnished or through a company, tell the notaire, because rental structures, outstanding loans secured on the property and guarantees given to a French bank all change the net estate and the documents the heirs will need, from the tableau d’amortissement (the loan repayment schedule) to the attestation of the insurance covering the loan.<\/p>\n French succession tax, the droits de succession, is charged on what each heir receives, not on the estate as a whole, and the first question is always territorial: does France tax the worldwide estate or only the French house. The charging provision answers in three branches: \u00ab Sont soumis aux droits de mutation \u00e0 titre gratuit : 1\u00b0 Les biens meubles et immeubles situ\u00e9s en France ou hors de France, et notamment les fonds publics, parts d’int\u00e9r\u00eats, biens ou droits composant un trust d\u00e9fini \u00e0 l’article 792-0 bis et produits qui y sont capitalis\u00e9s, cr\u00e9ances et g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement toutes les valeurs mobili\u00e8res fran\u00e7aises ou \u00e9trang\u00e8res de quelque nature qu’elles soient, lorsque le donateur ou le d\u00e9funt a son domicile fiscal en France au sens de l’article 4 B \u00bb (Article 750 ter, 1\u00b0, of the General Tax Code<\/a>). If the deceased was fiscally domiciled in France, which is the normal position of a British retiree living year-round in France, France taxes the worldwide estate including the English accounts and the UK house, with credits relieving double taxation where a treaty applies. Where the deceased stayed UK-domiciled and merely owned a French holiday home, France taxes the French property, directly or indirectly held, and the United Kingdom taxes under its own rules, with the 1963 France-United Kingdom succession convention allocating taxing rights over land and business assets and obliging one side to credit the other’s tax. The third branch extends French tax where the heir, not the deceased, is French-resident, subject to a six-years-in-ten residence test. Because domicile fiscal (the tax residence defined by home, length of stay, professional activity and centre of economic interests) is a facts-and-circumstances test rather than a visa stamp, the heirs’ first job is to assemble the residence file, French tax notices, UK HMRC correspondence, health cover, travel records, before the six-month filing deadline runs, since a wrong residence characterisation either overpays French tax on worldwide assets or triggers penalties for an incomplete declaration.<\/p>\n The scale of the bill then depends on who inherits, and the differences are brutal. A surviving spouse or PACS partner (the partner in a pacte civil de solidarit\u00e9, the French registered civil partnership) pays nothing: spouses and PACS partners are fully exempt from succession duty, which is why marriage or a PACS is often the cheapest succession planning a British couple in France can do. Each child benefits from a personal allowance before the rate scale bites: \u00ab il est effectu\u00e9 un abattement de 100 000 \u20ac sur la part de chacun des ascendants et sur la part de chacun des enfants vivants ou repr\u00e9sent\u00e9s par suite de pr\u00e9d\u00e9c\u00e8s ou de renonciation. \u00bb (Article 779, I, of the General Tax Code<\/a>). Above the allowance, the statute applies a progressive scale by brackets: \u00ab Les droits de mutation \u00e0 titre gratuit sont fix\u00e9s aux taux indiqu\u00e9s dans les tableaux ci-apr\u00e8s, pour la part nette revenant \u00e0 chaque ayant droit \u00bb (Article 777 of the General Tax Code<\/a>), running from 5 per cent on the first slice to 45 per cent on the largest shares in the direct line. Siblings get a far smaller allowance and rates of 35 to 45 per cent, nephews and nieces less still, and an unmarried partner or a stepchild who was never adopted is treated as a stranger: no family allowance to speak of and a flat 60 per cent rate. Work an example to feel the weight: a French house worth 450,000 euros passing to two children means each share of 225,000 euros, minus the 100,000 euro allowance, leaves 125,000 euros taxed through the lower brackets, a bill in the low tens of thousands per child, payable within six months of death where the deceased died in France, with interest and penalties for late filing. The declaration, the d\u00e9claration de succession (the detailed estate tax return listing assets, liabilities, gifts and allowances), is filed at the tax office of the deceased’s last French residence, the notaire usually prepares it, and deductible liabilities such as the outstanding mortgage balance, unpaid medical bills and funeral costs must be proved with documents, not asserted. Keep every loan statement, every facture for deductible debts and every proof of prior gifts, because the v\u00e9rificateur (the tax inspector) will ask, and undocumented deductions are simply refused.<\/p>\n When the assessment looks wrong, challenge it quickly and in the right order. Start with the notaire: valuation disputes over the French house are the most common source of inflated bills, and a second valuation, comparable sales from local agents and evidence of defects or tenancies can support a corrective return before any formal dispute. For a formal challenge, the first step is the r\u00e9clamation contentieuse (the written tax claim) sent to the tax office that issued the notice, setting out the legal basis, treaty article, allowance or valuation evidence, within the statutory time limit shown on the avis (the tax bill), and asking expressly for a stay of payment, the sursis de paiement, where the sums are large, so that recovery action is suspended while the claim is examined. If the administration maintains the assessment, the next stage is the tribunal administratif (the administrative court) for the duty itself, or the tribunal judiciaire (the civil court) for matters of domicile, ownership and family status that condition the tax. Where double taxation with the United Kingdom is at stake, invoke the 1963 convention expressly, compute the credit method in the claim, and attach the HMRC assessment and proof of payment, because the French office will not hunt for foreign tax paid on its own initiative. Where the dispute concerns the reserved share or the validity of the will itself, the action belongs before the tribunal judiciaire of the place where the succession opened, with the notaire’s file, the wills, the translations and the land registry extracts as exhibits. In every case, calendar the deadlines from the date of the decision or the bill, send claims by tracked means, and keep the accus\u00e9 de r\u00e9ception (the signed proof of delivery), because in French tax and succession litigation a strong file delivered one day late is worth nothing.<\/p>\n A British resident in France does not need to choose between an English will and a French will; the correct answer is almost always both, drafted together, covering separate assets, confirming each other, and carrying the same express choice of English law. That choice secures the administration and interpretation you wanted when you first went to your solicitor, while French habitual residence, French courts and the French notaire remain the unavoidable framework for the French house. The two limits no will can wish away are the children’s reserved shares, now backed by the compensatory levy on French property even under English law, and French succession tax, which rewards spouses, PACS partners and children and punishes informal arrangements and strangers with rates up to 60 per cent. Put the choice-of-law clause in writing, protect the spouse inside the disposable share or through the marriage regime and assurance-vie, file the succession declaration within six months with proved valuations and liabilities, and challenge errors through the notaire first and the formal claim and courts within their deadlines. Done in that order, your English wishes survive the Channel crossing, your spouse can stay in the house, your children receive what the law guarantees them, and the tax office gets what it is owed, no more.<\/p>\n Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm to review your English and French wills, secure your choice of English law and protect your spouse and children on your French house. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22<\/a> or write via the contact page of the firm<\/a>. We receive clients in Paris and act across the \u00cele-de-France region before the French courts and notaires of the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" British resident in France with an English will and a French house? Habitual residence, the written choice of English law, forced shares, the compensatory levy, dual wills and French succession tax explained, with challenge routes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251031309,"featured_media":16475,"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-2126022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british-desk","category-decryptage"],"yoast_head":"\nB. Why your English freedom to disinherit stops at the French border: forced shares and the compensatory levy<\/h3>\n
II. How do you write a will that works in both countries and keep the French tax bill under control?<\/h2>\n
A. One clause, two wills, zero contradictions: the drafting method that survives probate in both countries<\/h3>\n
B. Who pays French succession tax on the French house, how much, and how do you challenge the bill?<\/h3>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Need a quick opinion on your case.<\/h2>\n