{"id":2133204,"date":"2026-09-28T03:58:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T01:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/2026\/09\/28\/british-english-will-french-house-forced-heirship-choice-law-challenge-brexit\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T03:58:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T01:58:59","slug":"british-english-will-french-house-forced-heirship-choice-law-challenge-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.fr\/en\/2026\/09\/28\/british-english-will-french-house-forced-heirship-choice-law-challenge-brexit\/","title":{"rendered":"Your English Will and Your French House After Brexit: Choice of Law, the Forced Heirship Reserve, and How Your Children Can Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

You are British, you own a house in France, and you made an English will that leaves everything to your husband, your wife or your partner. It felt settled. Then a French notaire<\/em> \u2014 the public officer who alone can transfer French land after a death \u2014 tells your family that the will cannot do what you wrote, that your children each own a fixed share of the house whatever the will says, and that the surviving spouse may end up sharing the roof with your children from a first marriage. For many British owners, that conversation happens too late, in a notaire’s office, months after the funeral, when every option costs money. This guide explains the three questions that decide everything: which country’s law governs your French house now that Britain has left the European Union, how an express choice of English law in your will works and where it stops, and how your children can challenge a will that disinherits them \u2014 including the compensatory levy created in 2021 that takes a slice of French property to restore their French reserved share. It is written for the owner, not the academic: each French term is explained, each rule is followed by its practical consequence, and the final section gives you the procedure, the court and the time limits to challenge or to defend.<\/p>\n

I. Does your English will really govern your French house after Brexit?<\/h2>\n

A. Why your English will does not automatically control your French house<\/h3>\n

England and France start from opposite ideas about what a will can do. In England and Wales, you enjoy almost complete freedom of testation: subject to a court claim by certain dependants for reasonable provision, you may leave your estate to whom you please, including disinheriting an adult child. In France, freedom stops where the family starts. The Civil Code reserves a fixed fraction of every estate for the children, and no will, however clearly drafted, can take that fraction away. The collision between these two philosophies is the daily reality of every British-owned house in France, and Brexit did not remove it \u2014 it confirmed that the European rulebook still decides the conflict from the French side.<\/p>\n

That rulebook is Regulation (EU) No 650\/2012, the EU Succession Regulation, which France applies to every cross-border death. Its default rule is habitual residence, not nationality. Article 21(1) lays down the habitual-residence rule: Failing any other provision of the Regulation, the whole succession is governed by the law of the State where the deceased was habitually resident at death. If you are a British national who settled in France \u2014 the Dordogne farmhouse that became your main home, your tax residence, your doctor, your daily life \u2014 French courts treat you as habitually resident in France, and French succession law governs your whole estate, including your English bank accounts. The applicable law then decides, in particular, as Article 23(2)(b) of the Regulation confirms, since the applicable law determines the beneficiaries, their respective shares and the succession rights of the surviving spouse or partner. In plain terms: French law decides who gets what, and the French reserved share for children applies in full.<\/p>\n

If instead you stayed domiciled in England and kept the French property as a second home, the default rule points the other way: at death, your habitual residence is England, so English law governs the succession as a whole \u2014 including, in principle, the French house. That sounds like victory for your English will, but three qualifications matter enormously in practice. First, the English-law outcome only helps if your will actually covers the French asset and is recognised as valid in form; an English will that says “my estate” generally does cover foreign land, but ambiguity about foreign property is one of the commonest sources of litigation, and a will made before you bought the French house may never have contemplated it. Second, the French notaire<\/em> remains unavoidable: only a French notarial deed transfers French land in the land register, so your English executors \u2014 the personal representatives appointed by the will to administer the estate \u2014 must still instruct a notaire, prove the will under English law with a grant of probate, arrange sworn translations, and obtain an acte de notori\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em>, the notarial certificate that identifies the heirs and unlocks the estate. Our guide for executors walks through that probate-to-notaire handover step by step: British Executor Locked Out of a French House and Bank Account After Brexit<\/a>. Third, choosing or receiving English law does not neutralise the French protection of children, because the 2021 compensatory levy follows the French land itself, as Part II explains.<\/p>\n

Brexit changed the geometry without changing the French starting point. Before 17 August 2015, French courts split successions in two: French land followed French law come what may, while movables followed the law of domicile. The Succession Regulation replaced that split with a single law for the whole estate, and it kept applying in France after Brexit because the Regulation designates law universally. Article 20 gives the Regulation universal application: a law it designates applies whether or not it is the law of a Member State. So a French notaire or a French court can still designate English law after Brexit \u2014 the United Kingdom is simply treated as a third state whose law may govern \u2014 and symmetrically, an English court dealing with a French house applies its own English conflict rules, which for land traditionally point to the law of the place where the land sits, the lex situs<\/em>. The result is a pragmatic asymmetry you must plan for: from the French side, habitual residence or your express choice decides; from the English side, the French house often answers to French law anyway. Anyone who assumes that “my English will sorts everything” without checking both ends is planning with half a map.<\/p>\n

The unmarried deserve a special warning here, because the English will is sometimes their only shield. If you bought the French house with a partner to whom you are not married, neither English intestacy nor French intestacy gives the survivor an automatic share, and the children of either partner can force a sale. French couples in that position use the PACS<\/em> \u2014 the pacte civil de solidarit\u00e9<\/em>, France’s registered civil partnership \u2014 or purchase structures such as tontine<\/em> or indivision<\/em> with a carefully drafted agreement, each explained in our guide for unmarried buyers: Unmarried and Buying a French House Together After Brexit<\/a>. A will alone, even a good one, cannot replicate those lifetime structures, and for unmarried owners the choice-of-law clause discussed below is necessary but never sufficient.<\/p>\n

B. How to choose English law for your French estate before it is too late<\/h3>\n

The Regulation gives every British owner a powerful tool: the professio juris<\/em>, the choice of the law of your nationality written into your will. Article 22(1) allows a person to choose, for the whole succession, the law of the State whose nationality they hold when making the choice or at death, and a person with several nationalities may choose any of those laws. For a British-only national, that means English law (or Scots law for a Scot \u2014 specify which British legal system you mean, because England, Scotland and Northern Ireland have different succession rules). For a dual French-British national, it means you may choose either, which is precisely why the choice must be written down: without it, habitual residence decides, and a Franco-British family living in Lyon will fall under French law by default.<\/p>\n

Form matters as much as substance. Article 22(2) requires the choice to be express, in a declaration made in the form of a disposition of property upon death, or at least clearly demonstrated by the terms of such a disposition. In practice, that means a clear sentence in the will itself, for example a clause stating that the law of England and Wales is to govern the succession to the whole estate. A vague reference to “my English will” or the mere fact that the will was drafted by an English solicitor is not enough to be safe, and a choice hidden in a letter of wishes or a side note fails the test. The choice can be made or revoked at any time before death, in the form required for a will, and it is assessed at the nationalities held when you sign or when you die \u2014 so acquiring French nationality later does not destroy an earlier choice of English law, though reviewing the will at that moment is plainly wise.<\/p>\n

If your will predates Brexit, or predates the French purchase, assume it says nothing useful about French law and have it reviewed now. Wills drafted when Britain was an EU Member State sometimes contain no choice-of-law clause at all, because while freedom of movement lasted, many advisers assumed residence would sort itself out. Check three things: does the will expressly cover foreign immovable property; does it contain an Article 22 declaration naming the law of England and Wales (or Scotland); and does any later document accidentally revoke it \u2014 because under both English and French principles, a later will generally revokes an earlier one, and the classic blunder is a new English will that silently wipes out a French will made in the meantime. Many cross-Channel practitioners recommend two coordinated wills \u2014 an English will for the English estate and a French will for the French assets \u2014 each expressly limited to its territory and each declaring it does not revoke the other. If you go that route, the French will can be an olographe<\/em> will, entirely handwritten, dated and signed, or an authentique<\/em> will dictated before two notaires or a notaire with witnesses. The French public service points lay readers to the same starting point: putting last wishes in writing in a will in its guide Faire un testament (service-public.fr)<\/a>. Whatever form you choose, register both wills: in France, the notaire records the existence of the will in the FCDDV<\/em>, the fichier central des dispositions de derni\u00e8res volont\u00e9s<\/em>, the central file of last wishes that every notaire consults when a death is reported, so that a will locked in a drawer in Kent is not overlooked in P\u00e9rigueux.<\/p>\n

Appoint the right people on each side of the Channel. Your English executors administer the English estate and prove the will, but they have no automatic standing before the French land register; the French notaire conducts the devolution of the French assets, and you may additionally name an ex\u00e9cuteur testamentaire<\/em>, a testamentary executor under French law whose powers are narrower and time-limited compared with an English executor. Tell both sets of appointees about each other, give the notaire the executors’ details and the executors the notaire’s, and leave a certified copy and translation of the English will where it can be found. Finally, understand what the choice of English law cannot do, because this is where expensive misunderstandings cluster: it governs the succession, but it does not exempt French land from French tax, it does not bind the French land register to English forms, and \u2014 crucially \u2014 it does not prevent your children from reaching into the French property through the compensatory levy when English law gives them no reserved share. The choice of law organises the devolution; the reserve protects the children despite it. That protection is the whole of Part II.<\/p>\n

II. When your children can override your will and take a share of your French house<\/h2>\n

A. The forced heirship reserve and the compensatory levy that protects your children<\/h3>\n

The r\u00e9serve h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire<\/em> \u2014 the forced heirship reserve \u2014 is the non-negotiable core of French succession law. Article 912 of the Civil Code<\/a> defines it: “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.” In English: the reserve is the share of the estate that the law guarantees, free of charges, to certain heirs called r\u00e9servataires<\/em> \u2014 in practice, for British families, the children \u2014 provided they accept the succession; the quotit\u00e9 disponible<\/em>, the disposable portion, is what is left for you to give freely by lifetime gift or will. You may favour your spouse, reward one child, or benefit a friend, but only within the disposable portion. Everything above it can be clawed back.<\/p>\n

The fractions are fixed by Article 913<\/a>: “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.” One child reserves half the estate; two children reserve two-thirds; three or more reserve three-quarters. The same article adds a subtle rule for the child who renounces: such a child counts towards the number of children left by the deceased only if represented by their own descendants or if they must account for a gift under the reporting rules. A deliberate renunciation to inflate the siblings’ shares generally fails unless that child is represented by their own descendants or must account for a gift \u2014 a favourite tactic in family strategies that the Code anticipates and blocks.<\/p>\n

The Cour de cassation \u2014 France’s supreme court for civil matters \u2014 enforces the reserve strictly, including against gifts of usufruit<\/em>, the French right to use a property and take its fruits for life, which British testators constantly use to protect a surviving spouse or partner. In a judgment of 22 June 2022 (First Civil Chamber, appeal no. 20-23.215, Cour de cassation, 22 June 2022, no. 20-23.215<\/a>), a father had left his partner the usufruit<\/em> of his house by holographic will, and his daughter sought reduction of the gift. The Court restated the principle: “Il r\u00e9sulte du premier de ces textes qu’aucune disposition testamentaire ne peut modifier les droits que les h\u00e9ritiers r\u00e9servataires tiennent de la loi.” \u2014 no testamentary provision can alter the rights that the reserved heirs derive from statute. It added the practical sting: “Il s’en d\u00e9duit que les lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9s faites en usufruit s’imputent en assiette.” \u2014 gifts of usufruit<\/em> count in the base against the disposable portion. Leaving the house’s usufruit<\/em> to your spouse while the bare ownership \u2014 the nue-propri\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em>, ownership stripped of use \u2014 goes to the children works only if the numbers fit inside the quotit\u00e9 disponible<\/em>; if the usufruit<\/em> alone exhausts it, the child obtains reduction, and the survivor’s lifelong roof shrinks accordingly. Any British couple relying on a usufruit<\/em> clause should have the arithmetic checked now, not after the funeral.<\/p>\n

The reserve would be easy to evade from England if that were the end of the story: choose English law, which grants no fixed share to children, and the French house passes as the will directs. The statute that took effect on 1 November 2021 closes exactly that exit for French land. Article 913<\/a> now continues: “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.” Each child may take a pr\u00e9l\u00e8vement compensatoire<\/em> \u2014 a compensatory levy \u2014 from the assets situated in France at the death, restoring them up to their French reserved rights. Three conditions must coincide: the deceased or at least one child is, at death, a national of an EU Member State or habitually resident in one \u2014 note that British nationality alone no longer satisfies this, but habitual residence of the deceased or a child in France does, which covers the settled British family completely; the applicable foreign law, typically English law under an Article 22 choice, offers children no reserve mechanism; and the levy bites only French-situs assets, capped at the French reserved share. For the classic case \u2014 British parents retired to France, English wills leaving everything to the survivor, children in London \u2014 the conditions are routinely met: the parents reside in France, English law gives the children no fixed share, and the farmhouse sits in France. The children can levy on the house itself to restore their half, two-thirds or three-quarters. Choosing English law remains useful for everything else \u2014 it keeps one coherent law for the whole estate \u2014 but it no longer disinherits the children of their French minimum.<\/p>\n

Two related rules complete the picture. First, the order of heirs when there is no usable will: Article 734<\/a> provides that “En l’absence de conjoint successible, les parents sont appel\u00e9s \u00e0 succ\u00e9der ainsi qu’il suit : 1\u00b0 Les enfants et leurs descendants ; 2\u00b0 Les p\u00e8re et m\u00e8re ; les fr\u00e8res et soeurs et les descendants de ces derniers ; 3\u00b0 Les ascendants autres que les p\u00e8re et m\u00e8re ; 4\u00b0 Les collat\u00e9raux autres que les fr\u00e8res et soeurs et les descendants de ces derniers. Chacune de ces quatre cat\u00e9gories constitue un ordre d’h\u00e9ritiers qui exclut les suivants.” Children and their descendants come first and exclude everyone after them \u2014 which is why an invalid or revoked will defaults to the children anyway. Second, English law’s own safety net for disappointed family members \u2014 a claim for reasonable financial provision before the English courts \u2014 is discretionary, needs-based and litigated in England; it is not a fixed share, and it does not stop the French levy from operating on the French house in the meantime. Plan for both systems, not one.<\/p>\n

B. How your children challenge an unfair will \u2014 and how you protect your wishes now<\/h3>\n

The challenge procedure is the action en r\u00e9duction<\/em>, the action for reduction of excessive gifts, and it belongs exclusively to the protected circle. Article 921<\/a> states: “La 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.” Only the reserved heirs, their heirs or assigns may sue \u2014 not the beneficiaries of the will, not the deceased’s creditors. The same article sets a triple time limit that practitioners miss at their peril: “Le 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.” Five years from the opening of the succession, or two years from discovering the attack on the reserve, capped at ten years from death. And the notaire is now an early-warning system by statute: “Lorsque le notaire constate, lors du r\u00e8glement de la succession, que les droits r\u00e9servataires d’un h\u00e9ritier sont susceptibles d’\u00eatre atteints par les lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9s effectu\u00e9es par le d\u00e9funt, il informe 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.” If the notaire settling the estate sees that gifts may breach a child’s reserve, the notaire must warn each known heir individually, before any division, of the right to seek reduction. A child who was never warned, or who signed a partition without understanding it, should treat that warning duty as the first line of attack: demand the notaire’s calculations in writing.<\/p>\n

What the child recovers is computed on a reconstructed estate, not merely what is left on the table. Article 922<\/a> directs: “La r\u00e9duction se d\u00e9termine en formant une masse de tous les biens existant au d\u00e9c\u00e8s du donateur ou testateur. Les biens dont il a \u00e9t\u00e9 dispos\u00e9 par donation entre vifs sont fictivement r\u00e9unis \u00e0 cette masse, d’apr\u00e8s leur \u00e9tat \u00e0 l’\u00e9poque de la donation et leur valeur \u00e0 l’ouverture de la succession, apr\u00e8s qu’en ont \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9duites les dettes ou les charges les grevant.” Lifetime gifts are fictitiously reunited with the assets existing at death, debts deducted, and the disposable portion is calculated on that total \u2014 so the father who gave the villa to one child years ago and left the residue to his partner cannot shrink the reserve by giving early. As for the remedy, French law since 2006 favours money over restitution: Article 924<\/a> provides that “Lorsque la lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9 exc\u00e8de la quotit\u00e9 disponible, le gratifi\u00e9, successible ou non successible, doit indemniser les h\u00e9ritiers r\u00e9servataires \u00e0 concurrence de la portion excessive de la lib\u00e9ralit\u00e9, quel que soit cet exc\u00e9dent.” The over-endowed beneficiary compensates the reserved heirs in money for the excess, however large \u2014 the child does not automatically recover the house itself, which often allows the surviving spouse to keep the roof by paying compensation, provided the money exists.<\/p>\n

Two recent supreme court decisions shape where and when to sue. On jurisdiction, the First Civil Chamber held on 14 April 2021 (appeal no. 19-24.773, Cour de cassation, 14 April 2021, no. 19-24.773<\/a>) that “les tribunaux fran\u00e7ais sont comp\u00e9tents pour statuer sur une succession mobili\u00e8re lorsque le d\u00e9funt avait son domicile en France. Ils sont comp\u00e9tents pour statuer sur une succession immobili\u00e8re<\/a> pour les immeubles situ\u00e9s en France” \u2014 French courts decide movable successions where the deceased was domiciled in France, and immovable successions for buildings in France \u2014 and, combining the international succession principles with Article 924, that “l’action en r\u00e9duction exerc\u00e9e par les h\u00e9ritiers r\u00e9servataires contre le donataire d’un immeuble, qui ne tend pas \u00e0 la restitution en nature de l’immeuble mais au paiement d’une indemnit\u00e9 de r\u00e9duction et pr\u00e9sente, d\u00e8s lors, un caract\u00e8re mobilier, rel\u00e8ve de la comp\u00e9tence des tribunaux du pays o\u00f9 le d\u00e9funt avait son dernier domicile.” Because reduction now seeks money rather than the building, the action is movable in character and belongs to the courts of the country of the deceased’s last domicile. For a British owner who died domiciled in France, that means the Tribunal judiciaire<\/em> \u2014 the ordinary civil court \u2014 of the last French domicile; for one who died domiciled in England leaving a French house, expect a fight about forum, and get advice before filing. On time limits, the First Civil Chamber confirmed on 23 October 2024 (appeal no. 22-19.365, Cour de cassation, 23 October 2024, no. 22-19.365<\/a>): “L’action en r\u00e9duction, que l’article 921, alin\u00e9a 1er, du code civil reconna\u00eet \u00e0 ceux au profit desquels la loi fait la r\u00e9serve et \u00e0 leurs h\u00e9ritiers ou ayants cause, pr\u00e9sente le caract\u00e8re d’une action personnelle soumise \u00e0 la prescription quinquennale pr\u00e9vue \u00e0 l’article 2224 du m\u00eame code, quand bien m\u00eame elle aurait pour effet de r\u00e9soudre la question de l’existence d’un droit r\u00e9el sur les biens donn\u00e9s ou l\u00e9gu\u00e9s.” The action is personal, subject to the five-year limitation, even where it incidentally decides a right in the property \u2014 and transitional cases for older deaths received no indulgence, the Court computing expiry to the very day. Diarise the deadlines from the death certificate, not from the family meeting.<\/p>\n

Practically, a child who believes the English will cheats the reserve should move in this order. First, secure the paperwork: death certificate, the English will with grant of probate, any French will, the notaire’s d\u00e9compte<\/em> showing the fictitious reunion and the disposable portion, and valuations of the French property at death. Second, put the notaire on written notice that the reserve is disputed and that no partition should proceed without the calculation, invoking the statutory warning duty. Third, quantify the excess with an independent valuation \u2014 the usufruit<\/em> percentages in the 2022 case show how valuation decides outcomes \u2014 and send a formal demand for the indemnity to the over-endowed beneficiary. Fourth, if payment or negotiation fails, issue proceedings before the competent Tribunal judiciaire<\/em> within the five-year, two-year and ten-year limits, claiming reduction and the compensatory levy on the French assets where English law applies. Conversely, owners who want their wishes to survive should act symmetrically now: insert the Article 22 choice of English law, compute the quotit\u00e9 disponible<\/em> against today’s values with a margin for growth, keep lifetime gifts inside it, consider a French life-insurance contract \u2014 assurance-vie<\/em> \u2014 which passes outside the succession within its own ceilings for the spouse’s protection, and above all talk to the children before death fixes the numbers. A will that respects the reserve is a will nobody needs to challenge, and a family warned in advance rarely litigates. Where lifetime gifts of the house itself are contemplated instead, the gift deed, its allowances and its own challenge routes are examined in our guide to giving the French house to children: British Gift of a French House to Children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Your English will is necessary but never sufficient for your French house. Without an express choice of English law, habitual residence in France draws your whole estate into French succession law; with the choice, you gain coherence but not immunity, because the compensatory levy lets your children restore their French reserved share from the French property whenever the applicable foreign law gives them none. The fractions are fixed \u2014 half, two-thirds, three-quarters \u2014 the usufruit<\/em> counts, the lifetime gifts are reunited, the remedy is money, and the clock runs five years from death, two from discovery, ten at most. Review the will, write the Article 22 declaration in plain terms, register it where the French notaire will find it, compute the disposable portion before you sign anything else, and challenge quickly and in the right court if a will or a partition breaches the reserve. Done early, these steps cost a consultation; done late, they cost a house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British owner with a French house? Your English will may not control it. 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