French Inheritance for UK Nationals

How French inheritance law affects British owners

If you are a UK national who owns a house, a flat or a share in a property in France, French inheritance law reaches that property when you die — regardless of where you live, what your will says, or the fact that you are British. French-situated assets, and French real estate above all, are governed by French succession law unless you have validly chosen another law to govern your estate. That single point of situs is the reason a British owner cannot plan a French estate on English assumptions alone.

Two features of the French system catch British owners by surprise more than any other. The first is forced heirship (réserve héréditaire): your children are protected heirs who are guaranteed a fixed share of your estate, and you cannot cut them out, whatever your will provides. English law knows nothing like this — testamentary freedom is close to absolute in England and Wales — so the discovery that French law overrides the will comes as a shock. The second is that French inheritance tax works separately from French inheritance law: even a British owner who successfully arranges for English law to govern who inherits will still find that France taxes the French property, and that tax follows the family relationship, not the will.

These are two different questions, and the whole of cross-border estate planning for a British owner turns on keeping them apart. The first — who inherits — is governed by the civil law of succession and can, in the right case, be steered towards English law through a choice open under the EU Succession Regulation. The second — who pays, and how much — is governed by the tax code of each country and by the treaty between them, and it is not changed by a choice of civil law at all. A British owner who confuses the two ends up either paying for planning that does nothing, or believing they are protected when they are not.

This article takes each question in turn. It explains how French forced heirship applies to your children and why it constrains what you can leave; how a British owner can use an English will and the choice of law the EU Succession Regulation allows (the mechanism practitioners call "Brussels IV"); what changed, and what did not, when the United Kingdom left the European Union; how the France–UK inheritance-tax position works and where double taxation can arise; and the practical steps a British owner should take to bring a French estate under control. Every point of French law here comes from the French codes; every point of English, EU or treaty law is stated only from official sources, linked in the text.

Forced heirship and your children

French law does not give you free rein to dispose of your estate. Your nearest heirs — above all your children — are protected by the reserved portion (réserve héréditaire), the share of the estate that must pass to them (Article 912 of the Civil Code). What is left over is the freely disposable portion (quotité disponible), the only part you can give away by will or lifetime gift to anyone outside the protected group (Article 912, paragraph 2). Because the reserve is an absolute right in the succession, it is impossible to disinherit a reserved heir completely. For a British owner used to English testamentary freedom, this is the central difference to absorb.

The reserved heirs are the descendants and, where there are no descendants, the non-divorced spouse (Article 913-1 and Article 914-1 of the Civil Code). For children, the size of the reserve depends on how many there are. Article 913 fixes the freely disposable portion at one half where you leave one child, one third where you leave two children, and one quarter where you leave three or more. The reserve is the mirror image: one half is reserved for a single child, two thirds for two children between them, and three quarters where there are three or more. All descendants count as "children" for this purpose (Article 913-1), so grandchildren who inherit in place of a predeceased parent are reserved heirs too, and the reserve is worked out by branch — a predeceased child's share is preserved for that child's own children.

The practical effect for a British owner is concrete. Suppose you own a French holiday home worth €600,000, you have two children, and you would like to leave the whole of it to your spouse or to a new partner. French law will not let you: with two children, two thirds of the estate — €400,000 of value — is reserved for them, and you are free to dispose of only the remaining one third. A will that purports to give everything to someone else does not simply fail; it exposes the estate to an action by the children to claw the property back to the level of their reserve.

That claw-back is a real mechanism, not a theoretical one. If lifetime gifts or legacies encroach on the reserve, the reserved heirs can bring an action to cut them back (action en réduction); the reduction does not happen automatically and must be claimed by the heirs who have been shortchanged (Article 920 of the Civil Code). Conversely, a reserved heir can agree in advance, in a formal deed, to give up the right to attack a future gift, through a renunciation of the action to reduce (renonciation anticipée à l'action en réduction) in an estate that is not yet open (Article 929) — a route sometimes used where an adult child is willing to consent to a particular arrangement. And where there are no reserved heirs at all — no descendants and no spouse — the whole estate is freely disposable and gifts or legacies may exhaust it (Article 916).

For the British owner, the lesson of forced heirship is not that nothing can be done, but that the planning has to be built around the reserve rather than in defiance of it. You cannot simply write an English-style will leaving the French house wherever you please and assume it will take effect. Either you accept that your children take their reserved shares, or you consider the one route French law itself opens to a foreign national — choosing your national law to govern the succession — which is the subject of the next section.

Using your UK will: the Brussels IV election

There is one route by which a British owner can lawfully step outside French forced heirship, and it comes from EU law, not French law. The EU Succession Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 650/2012, often called "Brussels IV") applies to the estates of those who die on or after 17 August 2015. By default it makes the law of the deceased's last habitual residence govern the whole succession, but it lets a person choose instead the law of a country of their nationality to govern their entire estate (EUR-Lex, Regulation 650/2012; European e-Justice Portal). A British national can therefore choose English law — which has no forced heirship — to govern the devolution of their French property.

The choice is made in the will. In practice a British owner has their solicitor or notaire include an express clause electing the law of the United Kingdom (more precisely the law of England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, as the relevant part of the UK) to govern the whole of the succession. Made correctly, that election displaces French devolution and forced heirship as the law that decides who inherits, and lets the estate pass according to the English will — leaving the French house, for example, entirely to a spouse or partner, notwithstanding the children's French reserve.

Whether the election achieves its aim depends on getting the mechanics right, and there is one French limit that a British owner must understand before relying on it. For estates opened since 1 November 2021, where the deceased or at least one of their children is, at the time of death, a national of an EU member state or habitually resident in one, and the foreign law governing the succession allows no mechanism reserving a share for the children, each child (or their heirs) may take a compensatory levy (prélèvement compensatoire) on the assets located in France at death, so as to be restored to the reserved rights French law would have given them, up to that amount (loi 2021-1109 of 24 August 2021, Article 24; Article 913 of the Civil Code, as amended). In plain terms: choosing English law does not automatically defeat a child's reserve where that child has an EU connection. If one of your children is a French resident, or holds the nationality of an EU state, the levy can restore their reserved share out of your French assets even though your will elected English law.

Outside that EU scenario — for estates whose international character is purely non-EU — the position rests on case law rather than the 2021 levy. The Cour de cassation held in 2017 that a foreign law designated by the conflict rule which ignores the reserved portion is not in itself contrary to French international public policy, and can be set aside only where its concrete application would leave the children in a situation of economic precariousness or need (Cass. civ. 27 September 2017, nos. 16-13151 and 16-17198). So a British owner whose children live outside the EU has a stronger prospect that an English-law election will hold, subject to that public-policy safety valve.

The practical takeaway is that the Brussels IV election is powerful but conditional. It is the correct tool for a British owner who wants to leave French property more freely than forced heirship allows, and it is given effect in France — but its outcome turns on where your children are connected and on the election being drafted properly in the will. The tool below walks through whether an election is the right route for your family and flags where the 2021 levy may cut across it.

French succession after Brexit

Brexit changed the label but not the substance of a British owner's succession position, and the reason is a technical feature of the EU Succession Regulation that survives the UK's departure. The United Kingdom never opted into the Regulation in the first place — it was one of the member states that stayed outside it, alongside Denmark and Ireland (European e-Justice Portal). So from the point of view of the Regulation, the UK was already a "third country" before it left the EU, and Brexit did not alter that status in any way that matters to a British owner of French property.

What makes the election continue to work is that the Regulation applies universally in the states that are bound by it. France is a participating state, and it applies the Regulation's rules whatever the nationality involved and whether or not the chosen law is that of an EU member — the Regulation's provisions apply "even if the law is not that of a Member State" (EUR-Lex, Regulation 650/2012). Because France applies the Regulation universally, a British national can still choose the law of their nationality — UK law — to govern their French succession, and a French notaire administering the estate will give effect to that choice. The fact that the UK is now outside the EU does not stop France, as a participating state, from honouring a valid election of British national law.

The point that a British owner should take away is one of reassurance, correctly understood. Much was written around Brexit about British owners "losing" the ability to plan their French estates, and it was largely wrong. The Brussels IV election is still available to a UK national, because it always depended on France's application of the Regulation rather than on the UK's membership of the EU. What did not change either is the French forced-heirship default and the 2021 compensatory levy: they apply to a British owner exactly as before, and the levy in particular is triggered by an EU connection of the deceased or a child, not by the deceased's own EU or non-EU status. Brexit neither opened nor closed any door here.

Where Brexit does have consequences for a British owner, they are practical and administrative rather than a matter of succession law — for instance in the procedures for recognising documents, in residence status, and above all in tax, where the UK's status is now that of a non-EU country. Those tax consequences are the subject of the next section. On the core civil-law question of who inherits your French property, however, the message is that a British owner today has the same planning options as a British owner in 2020, and the same limits.

The France–UK inheritance-tax position and double taxation

Tax is a separate question from succession law, and it is the one where a British owner is most exposed. France taxes what is situated in France, the UK taxes on the basis of the deceased's connection to the UK, and the same French property can fall within both charges at once. A choice of English law to govern who inherits does nothing to change any of this — the tax rules are not displaced by the civil-law election.

On the French side, the rule is one of situs. French inheritance duty (droits de mutation à titre gratuit) reaches the assets situated in France whatever the deceased's domicile. Where the deceased was not resident in France and the heirs are themselves domiciled outside France, only the movable and immovable assets located in France are within the French charge (Article 750 ter, 2° of the General Tax Code). Where the deceased was resident in France, French duty extends to worldwide assets (Article 750 ter, 1°); and where the deceased was a non-resident but an heir has been fiscally domiciled in France for at least six of the ten years before the death, that heir's worldwide inheritance becomes taxable in France (Article 750 ter, 3°). For the typical British owner living in the UK with a French holiday home, the operative rule is the second one: the French house is taxed in France because it is in France, and the French duty follows the family relationship between the deceased and the beneficiary — a spouse and children are taxed very differently from a remoter beneficiary.

On the UK side, the charge turns on the deceased's connection to the UK. The UK levies inheritance tax with a nil-rate band of £325,000 and an additional residence nil-rate band of up to £175,000 where a home is passed to direct descendants, both frozen until the end of the 2030–31 tax year (GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax thresholds). Transfers between spouses and civil partners are generally exempt (GOV.UK, How Inheritance Tax works). Crucially for a British owner, the scope of UK inheritance tax on worldwide assets changed on 6 April 2025: it now depends on long-term residence rather than domicile. A person who has been UK-resident for at least ten of the previous twenty tax years is a long-term UK resident, and their non-UK assets — including a French property — fall within UK inheritance tax (GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax if you're a long-term UK resident). A British owner who has lived in the UK for most of their life will typically be a long-term UK resident, so their French house is within the UK charge as well as the French one.

That is where double taxation can arise: the same French property is taxed in France because it sits in France, and taxed again in the UK because its owner is a long-term UK resident. Double taxation occurs when the same person is taxed on the same assets by more than one State. Two things relieve it. The first is the bilateral treaty. There is a France–UK convention on estate duties — the Double Taxation Relief (Estate Duty) (France) Order 1963, giving effect to a convention signed on 21 June 1963, which covers the duty imposed on successions on death in France and estate duty in Great Britain, and contains rules on where property is treated as situated, exemptions preventing one country taxing property outside its territory, and credits for tax paid to the other country (legislation.gov.uk, SI 1963/1319). Because the convention is an old one, exactly how each of its rules applies to a given estate is a matter to be checked against its text rather than assumed.

The second relief is the French credit mechanism. Under the ordinary French rules for eliminating double taxation, where France is the country of residence, tax paid abroad is creditable against the French duty, within the limit of the tax due in France. In other words, France does not simply add its charge on top of a foreign one without relief where it is the residence state; it gives credit for the foreign tax up to the amount of the French duty on the same assets. For a British owner the interaction of the situs rule, the UK long-term-residence charge, the 1963 convention and the French credit is genuinely technical, and the only safe way to know the net position is to work it through asset by asset. The tool below sets out, at a high level, whether both countries can tax and where relief comes from.

Practical steps for a British owner

Bringing a French estate under control is a sequence of decisions, and for a British owner they are best taken in a particular order — civil law first, then tax, then the paperwork. Taken in that order, the technicality of the cross-border position becomes a series of manageable steps rather than a single intractable problem.

Frequently asked questions

Does French inheritance law apply to British owners?

Yes, to your French property. French-situated assets, and French real estate in particular, are governed by French succession law — including forced heirship — whatever your nationality or where you live, unless you have validly chosen another law to govern your estate. That means your children are protected reserved heirs of your French property: half the estate is reserved for one child, two thirds for two, and three quarters for three or more (Article 913 of the Civil Code). A British owner cannot assume English testamentary freedom applies to the French house.

Is my UK will valid in France?

A UK will can be effective for your French estate, but a British owner should take advice on how the English and French wills fit together and on making any choice-of-law election clear. Under the EU Succession Regulation, a British national can elect the law of their nationality to govern the whole succession, and France gives effect to that choice (European e-Justice Portal). Without a valid election, French forced heirship applies to the French property regardless of what the UK will says.

Can I choose English law for my French property?

Yes. Under the EU Succession Regulation a British national can choose the law of their nationality — English law, which has no forced heirship — to govern their whole succession, and France, as a participating state, applies the Regulation universally so the election works even though the UK is a third country (EUR-Lex, Regulation 650/2012). One limit: where a child is an EU national or EU-resident, a 2021 compensatory levy can restore that child's reserved share out of your French assets (Article 913 of the Civil Code, as amended in 2021).

Do I pay inheritance tax in both the UK and France?

You can. France taxes the assets situated in France whatever your domicile (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code), and the UK taxes your worldwide estate — including the French property — if you are a long-term UK resident, meaning UK-resident for at least ten of the previous twenty tax years (GOV.UK). Double taxation on the same French asset is relieved through the France–UK convention on estate duties of 21 June 1963 (legislation.gov.uk) and, where France is the country of residence, a French credit for foreign tax within the limit of the French duty.

Does Brussels IV still apply after Brexit?

Yes, for a British owner electing UK law. The UK never opted into the EU Succession Regulation and was already a third country from the Regulation's point of view, but France applies the Regulation universally and honours a British national's election of their national law even though the UK is outside the EU (EUR-Lex, Regulation 650/2012; European e-Justice Portal). Brexit did not remove the election, and it did not change French forced heirship or the 2021 compensatory levy either.

Will my children still inherit a share of my French property?

Under French law they are reserved heirs and cannot be cut out: half is reserved for one child, two thirds for two, three quarters for three or more (Article 913 of the Civil Code). A valid Brussels IV election of English law can displace that default, but where a child is EU-connected the 2021 compensatory levy can restore their reserved share out of your French assets (Article 913, as amended). Whether your children take a fixed share depends on whether an election is in place and on your family's connections.

How our French lawyers help British owners with French inheritance

Cross-border succession rarely produces the result a British owner expects, and the time to find that out is before the will is signed, not after the death. We advise UK nationals and British owners of French property on exactly how French forced heirship applies to their family, on whether a Brussels IV election of UK law will actually achieve what it is meant to given the 2021 compensatory levy, and on the France–UK inheritance-tax position — where France taxes the French assets, where the UK taxes worldwide assets of a long-term resident, and how the 1963 convention and the French credit relieve any double charge. We coordinate the French and English sides so your wills, your election and your tax position work together.

This article is for general information only. It does not constitute legal advice and does not create a lawyer-client relationship. How French inheritance law and tax apply depends on the family, the assets, their location, the deceased's residence, and any will or choice of law. The non-French law summarised here — the EU Succession Regulation, UK inheritance tax and the France–UK convention — is stated from official sources current at the date of writing and can change. Contact our French lawyers for advice on your situation before acting.