Art. 750 ter
French real estate is taxed in France on the owner's death whatever the owner's or the heirs' country of residence — a French holiday home is always within the French inheritance-tax net (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code).
€100,000
Each child takes an allowance of €100,000 against their share of a parent's estate before any French inheritance tax is due; the scale then runs from 5% to 45% (Articles 779 and 777 of the General Tax Code).
Art. 764 bis
The 20% valuation reduction that softens the tax on a family home applies only to the deceased's main residence — a holiday home is a second home, so it does not qualify (Article 764 bis of the General Tax Code).

What happens when you inherit French property

When you inherit a French holiday home, French law takes over the succession of that property the moment the owner dies, whatever your own nationality and wherever you live. French-situated real estate is governed by French succession law and taxed in France, and the estate is settled through a French notaire who establishes who the heirs are, values the property, files an inheritance-tax return and publishes the deed that transfers the title into the heirs' names. Nothing passes cleanly into your name until that process is complete.

This surprises many foreign families, who assume that a will made at home, or the law of their own country, decides everything. It does not. A French holiday home sits in France, and the French rules on who inherits, on forced heirship, on inheritance tax and on the notarial formalities all apply to it by default. The one lever a foreign owner has is the choice-of-law election under the EU Succession Regulation, which can change who inherits — but it does not remove French inheritance tax, and it does not remove the French notaire from the process.

Three separate questions have to be answered, and it helps to keep them apart from the start. The first is who inherits the property and in what shares — a question of civil law, governed by French devolution and forced heirship unless a valid choice of national law displaces them. The second is how much tax the heirs pay on it — a question of French inheritance tax, which applies to the French property regardless of the law chosen to govern the succession and regardless of where anyone lives. The third is the mechanics — the notarial steps, deadlines and the deed that finally puts the property in your name. This article works through all three, and then through the two decisions that follow: whether to keep or sell a property several people now own together, and what happens to the tax position if you sell later.

A holiday home also raises one point of detail that costs real money and that many heirs get wrong: it is a second home, not a main residence, and several of the reliefs built into French inheritance and capital-gains tax are reserved for a main residence. Where those reliefs would have applied to the family's principal home, they simply do not apply to a holiday home. We flag each of them below so that the tax you plan for is the tax you will actually face.

Who inherits (and forced heirship)

Where there is no valid choice of another law, French law decides who inherits the holiday home. It calls blood relatives to the estate in four classes, called orders, and each order excludes every order below it (Article 734 of the Civil Code). Descendants — children and their issue — come first; failing them, the deceased's parents together with brothers, sisters and their descendants; then more distant ascendants such as grandparents; and finally more distant collaterals such as uncles, aunts and cousins. A surviving spouse who is not divorced has a claim of their own alongside these relatives. For most families inheriting a holiday home, this means the children inherit, in equal shares, and a surviving spouse takes a share set by law.

The feature that most often catches foreign owners off guard is forced heirship (réserve héréditaire). French law does not let an owner dispose freely of the whole estate where they leave children. Article 913 of the Civil Code reserves a fixed share of the estate for the children and caps the part the owner could give away — the freely disposable portion (quotité disponible) — at one half where there is one child, one third where there are two, and one quarter where there are three or more. The mirror image is the reserved share: one half is reserved for a single child, two thirds shared between two children, and three quarters shared among three or more. All descendants count as "children" for this purpose (Article 913-1). You cannot disinherit a child under French law, and a will that tries to leave a French holiday home away from the children can be cut back to respect their reserve.

For an heir, forced heirship usually works in your favour rather than against you: if you are the child of the deceased, it guarantees you a share of the French property that no will could take away. The complication arises the other way around — where the deceased tried to leave the property to someone else, or to some of the children and not others, and the reserved heirs' shares have to be restored. That is a question to raise with the notaire at the outset, because it changes who actually owns the property once the estate is settled.

Where the deceased was married

A surviving spouse who is not divorced is an heir in their own right, and their share is carved out before the children's. With children who are all of the marriage, the spouse chooses between the usufruct — the right to use and enjoy — of the whole estate and one quarter of it in full ownership, with the children taking the rest. Where the holiday home is held in usufruct by the survivor, the children hold the bare ownership and recover full ownership on the survivor's later death. This is why an inherited holiday home so often ends up owned by several people at once, and why the "keep or sell" question, dealt with below, matters so much in practice.

Choosing your national law (the Brussels IV election)

A foreign owner is not always locked into French forced heirship. The EU Succession Regulation — Regulation (EU) No 650/2012, sometimes called Brussels IV — lets a person choose the law of a country of their nationality to govern their whole succession, in place of the law that would otherwise apply. The Regulation applies to the estates of those who die on or after 17 August 2015 (EUR-Lex, Regulation 650/2012). By default, "the law of the Member State in which citizens had their last habitual residence" governs the succession; "however, citizens can choose that the law that should apply to their succession should be the law of their country of nationality" (European e-Justice Portal).

For a British, American or other national whose home law does not impose forced heirship, this is the mechanism that can free up a French holiday home. By making the election in a will — expressly choosing national law to govern the estate — an owner can, in principle, leave the French property more freely than French devolution would allow: to a spouse rather than split with the children, or to some heirs and not others. The election governs the civil succession — who inherits and in what shares — across the whole estate, not just the French part. It is a decision to make while the owner is alive; an heir cannot make it after the death. If you are inheriting a French holiday home now, the first thing to establish with the notaire is whether the deceased made such a choice, because it decides whether French forced heirship or the owner's national law governs who takes the property.

Two limits are worth stating plainly, because both are widely misunderstood. First, the Regulation is about civil succession only: it changes who inherits, but it does not touch French inheritance tax. Choosing English or another national law does not exempt a French holiday home from French inheritance tax, which applies to the French property on its own footing (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code, discussed below). Second, not every EU country takes part: "Denmark and Ireland do not participate in the Regulation," so successions handled by their authorities follow their own national rules (European e-Justice Portal). Whether a choice of national law achieves what the family intends — and whether it holds up against a child's protected share — is a technical question that has to be settled before the will is signed, not argued over after the death.

The inheritance tax you will pay

French inheritance tax applies to a French holiday home whatever the law chosen to govern the succession and wherever the deceased and the heirs live. French real estate is French-situated property, and where the deceased was not resident in France and the heirs are also outside France, "only movable and immovable property situated in France must be declared" — which squarely includes the holiday home (Article 750 ter, 2° of the General Tax Code). There is no residence exemption for the building itself: the property is taxed in France because it is in France.

How much tax is due depends on two things: your relationship to the deceased and the value of your share. Each relationship carries its own tax-free allowance (abattement) and its own rate scale. A child takes an allowance of €100,000 against their share of a parent's estate before any tax is due (Article 779, I of the General Tax Code). Above the allowance, the direct-line scale (Article 777) runs in bands: 5% up to €8,072, 10% from €8,072 to €12,109, 15% from €12,109 to €15,932, 20% from €15,932 to €552,324, then 30%, 40% and 45% on the higher bands. In practice, a child inheriting a holiday home worth a few hundred thousand euros pays most of the tax at the 20% band on the slice above the €100,000 allowance.

The other relationships are treated very differently, and this matters for holiday homes left to a partner or a wider family. A surviving spouse and a PACS partner pay no French inheritance tax at all: they have been exempt on death since 22 August 2007 (Article 796-0 bis of the General Tax Code). A brother or sister takes an allowance of only €15,932 and is then taxed at 35% and 45% (Articles 779, IV and 777). A nephew or niece has an allowance of €7,967, and someone unrelated to the deceased — an unmarried partner who is not linked by a PACS, for example — has an allowance of just €1,594 and is taxed at 60% on the rest. A holiday home left to a friend or an unmarried partner can therefore lose well over half its value to tax, which is often reason enough to plan the ownership differently while the owner is alive.

Why the 20% main-home reduction does not apply

Here is the trap that catches heirs of a holiday home. French inheritance tax gives a 20% reduction on the value of the deceased's main residence where, at the date of death, that home was also occupied as a main residence by the surviving spouse, a PACS partner, or certain of the children (Article 764 bis of the General Tax Code). It is a genuine saving — it takes a fifth off the taxable value of the family home. But it is reserved for the main residence, and a holiday home is by definition a second home. The source is explicit: "second homes, as well as properties let out, cannot benefit from the 20% reduction provided for by Article 764 bis of the General Tax Code" (les résidences secondaires ainsi que les immeubles donnés en location ne peuvent bénéficier de l'abattement de 20 %). Where the deceased lived alone in the property at death, or had a different main residence, the reduction does not apply either.

The practical consequence is that a holiday home is taxed on its full open-market value, with no 20% haircut, whereas the same family's principal home would have been taxed on 80% of its value. When you estimate the tax on an inherited holiday home, use the full value, apply the allowance for your relationship, and run the scale on the balance — do not assume any main-residence relief. The widget below does exactly that for the common situations.

The notaire process step by step

A French estate that contains real estate must be settled by a French notaire, and inheriting a holiday home means going through a defined sequence of formalities. The notaire establishes who the heirs are, values the estate, files the inheritance-tax return with the tax authority, and publishes the deed that transfers the property into the heirs' names. You cannot deal with the holiday home — sell it, mortgage it, or clear its title — until these steps are done. The main stages are the same wherever the heirs live.

Instruct a notaire and prove who the heirs are

The first step is to instruct a notaire, who draws up the deed of known heirs (acte de notoriété). Proof of the status of heir may be established by any means, and in particular by this deed (Article 730-1 of the Civil Code). The notaire draws it up at the heirs' request, referring to the death certificate and the supporting documents — civil-status records, the family record book, any will, and the reply from the central register of wills — and it is this deed that formally identifies who is entitled to inherit.

Value the property and file the inheritance-tax return

The heirs must file an inheritance-tax return (déclaration de succession) declaring the estate and its value, including the holiday home at its full open-market value. The return must be filed within six months of the death where the death occurs in metropolitan France (Article 641 of the General Tax Code), and within a year in other cases. Direct-line heirs, a surviving spouse and a PACS partner are excused from filing where the gross estate is below €50,000 and they received no earlier undeclared gift — but any tax due is paid when the return is filed, so the six-month clock matters.

Publish the property deed to transfer the title

For the real estate itself, the notaire draws up and publishes a notarial property attestation (attestation immobilière), the deed that records the transfer of the property to the heirs. These attestations must be published within 24 months of the death; once published at the land registry (service de la publicité foncière), they "constitute the title of ownership of the beneficiaries over the immovable property transferred." This is the deed that finally puts the holiday home in your name in the public record.

Decide whether to keep or sell — and settle the tax

Once the heirs are established and the title is cleared, the family decides whether to keep the property jointly or sell it. Where the title to the property had not been established before the death, the filing deadline is extended to 24 months (Article 641 bis of the General Tax Code), which can give an international family more room. Late filing carries interest and penalties, so a holiday home abroad is best handled promptly, with the notaire coordinating the valuation, the return and the deed together.

For a foreign heir, two practical points make the difference between a smooth settlement and a stalled one. The notaire can act for heirs who are abroad, and much of the process can be handled by correspondence and a power of attorney, so you do not need to be in France for every step. And because French inheritance tax is generally paid at the point the return is filed, it is worth establishing early how the tax will be funded — from the estate, from the sale of the property, or from the heirs' own resources — rather than discovering a six-figure liability with weeks left on the clock.

Joint ownership and keeping versus selling

Where several people inherit a holiday home together — the usual case for children of the deceased — they own it in joint ownership (indivision). This is a state that arises automatically on death, by the mere operation of law, without any act of will by the heirs: the ownership of the property that belonged to the deceased becomes collective, and it ends only on a division of the estate (Article 815 of the Civil Code). Each co-owner holds an undivided fractional share of the whole, not a defined physical part, and they exercise their rights concurrently over the entire property until it is divided.

Joint ownership works while the family agrees, and it is the natural way to keep a holiday home in the family across a generation. But it is governed by unanimity for the most important decisions, which means that where the heirs fall out, the property can be blocked. French law answers that risk with a blunt rule: no one can be compelled to remain in joint ownership, and a division can always be demanded (Articles 815 and 816 of the Civil Code). Any co-owner can force the issue — the right to demand a division is described as a discretionary right that cannot be abused, and where the co-owners cannot agree, a court can order the division, which in practice means the property is sold and the proceeds shared. One heir who wants out can therefore end up forcing the sale of a house the others wanted to keep.

Families who want to keep a holiday home for the long term usually do one of three things. They can enter a joint-ownership agreement (convention d'indivision) under Article 815-1 of the Civil Code, which regulates how the co-owners exercise their rights and can fix the arrangement for a renewable term of up to five years, during which a division cannot ordinarily be demanded. They can have one heir buy out the others' shares, so that the property ends up in single ownership. Or they can restructure the ownership entirely — most commonly by holding the property through a French property company (SCI), so that the family owns shares in a company rather than undivided fractions of a house, which makes it far easier to manage the property, to admit and remove owners, and to pass shares down without triggering another round of joint ownership. Which route suits a family depends on how many heirs there are, how well they get on, and whether they intend to keep the property for years or sell it soon.

Keep or sell: the questions that decide it

The keep-or-sell decision is partly practical and partly financial. Keeping the property means agreeing how running costs, French local property taxes and maintenance are shared, and how use is allocated between families in different countries — the things a joint-ownership agreement or an SCI is designed to formalise. Selling means realising the value now and, as the next section explains, facing French capital-gains tax on any increase over the value used for inheritance. Because any one co-owner can ultimately force a sale, it is far better for the family to decide deliberately, and to document the decision, than to drift in undivided ownership until a disagreement makes the decision for them.

Selling later: the capital-gains position

If the heirs sell the holiday home rather than keep it, French capital-gains tax on real estate (plus-value immobilière) can apply to the gain. The gain is the difference between the sale price and the acquisition value — and for an inherited property, the acquisition value is the value that was declared for the property in the inheritance. In determining the gain realised, the value to take as the starting value is the value adopted for inheritance purposes (per the tax administration's own guidance, cited in the source at 14.txt line 853). In other words, the figure you and the notaire put on the holiday home in the inheritance-tax return becomes the base against which any future gain is measured.

This makes the inheritance valuation doubly important, and it cuts both ways. A higher declared value increases the inheritance tax now but reduces the taxable gain on a later sale; a lower declared value does the opposite. Because a holiday home is a second home, it does not attract the exemption French law gives to the sale of a main residence — that relief is reserved for the seller's principal home, and it does not apply here. A holiday home sold at a profit over its inheritance value is therefore, in principle, within the scope of capital-gains tax, subject to the ownership-period reliefs that reduce or eliminate the charge the longer the property is held.

Two features of the French capital-gains regime soften the position over time, and both reward keeping the property. First, the acquisition value is the inheritance value, so heirs who inherited at a high valuation may have little or no gain if they sell soon afterwards. Second, French law tapers the gain according to how long the property has been owned, counting from the date it was acquired — for an inherited property, from the death — so that the taxable gain shrinks over the years of ownership and is eventually extinguished. The interaction between the inheritance valuation, the holding period and the reliefs is worth modelling before either declaring the estate or agreeing to sell, because the two decisions are linked: the value you declare for inheritance is the value you will be taxed against when you sell.

For an international family, the message is to treat the inheritance and any eventual sale as a single planning exercise. The valuation entered in the déclaration de succession is not just a tax figure for today; it is the acquisition value that will define the gain if the family sells the holiday home in five, ten or twenty years. Getting that value right, and understanding how the holding-period reliefs apply from the date of death, is part of settling the estate well rather than an afterthought once a buyer appears.

Frequently asked questions about inheriting a French holiday home

What happens when I inherit a house in France?

French law governs the succession of French real estate, so the estate is settled by a French notaire who establishes the heirs by a deed of known heirs (acte de notoriété, Article 730-1 of the Civil Code), values the property, files the inheritance-tax return and publishes the property deed that transfers the title into your name. French inheritance tax applies to the property because it is in France, whatever your nationality or country of residence (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code). Nothing passes cleanly into your name until the notaire has completed these steps.

Do I pay French inheritance tax on a holiday home?

Yes. A French holiday home is French-situated property and is taxed in France on the owner's death regardless of where the owner or the heirs live (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code). How much you pay depends on your relationship to the deceased and the value of your share: a child has a €100,000 allowance and is then taxed on a 5%–45% scale (Articles 779 and 777), a spouse or PACS partner pays nothing (Article 796-0 bis), and more distant heirs pay considerably more. Crucially, the 20% reduction that applies to a main residence does not apply to a holiday home, because it is a second home (Article 764 bis).

What do I do first?

Instruct a French notaire. The notaire draws up the deed of known heirs that identifies who inherits (Article 730-1 of the Civil Code), then values the estate and prepares the inheritance-tax return, which must be filed within six months of a death occurring in metropolitan France (Article 641 of the General Tax Code). The notaire can act for heirs who are abroad, so much of the process can be handled by correspondence and a power of attorney; the priority is to start early, because the six-month filing clock and the tax it triggers run from the death.

Can I choose my national law?

The choice belongs to the owner, made while alive, not to the heirs after the death. Under the EU Succession Regulation (Regulation 650/2012), for deaths on or after 17 August 2015, a person may choose the law of their nationality to govern their whole succession in place of the default law of their habitual residence (European e-Justice Portal). If the deceased made that election in a valid will, their national law — rather than French forced heirship — governs who inherits the holiday home. The election changes who inherits, but it does not remove French inheritance tax on the French property.

What if several of us inherit it together?

You own the property in joint ownership (indivision), which arises automatically on death and ends only on a division of the estate (Article 815 of the Civil Code). Decisions generally need unanimity, and any co-owner can force a division, because no one can be compelled to remain in joint ownership (Articles 815 and 816). Families who want to keep a holiday home usually formalise the arrangement — through a joint-ownership agreement (Article 815-1), a buy-out of the other shares, or by holding the property through an SCI — rather than leaving it in undivided ownership where a single heir can force a sale.

Can I be made to sell a holiday home I want to keep?

Yes, if you own it jointly with other heirs and one of them insists on a division. French law provides that no one can be compelled to remain in joint ownership and that a division can always be demanded (Articles 815 and 816 of the Civil Code); where the co-owners cannot agree, a court can order the division, which usually means the property is sold and the proceeds shared. The way to protect a property the family wants to keep is to agree the ownership in advance — a joint-ownership agreement or an SCI — before a disagreement forces the outcome.

Key takeaways
A French holiday home is settled under French law by a French notaire, and is taxed in France whatever your nationality or residence (Article 750 ter of the General Tax Code).
By default French forced heirship reserves a fixed share for the children (Article 913), unless the owner chose their national law under the EU Succession Regulation for a death on or after 17 August 2015.
A child has a €100,000 allowance and is then taxed on a 5%–45% scale; a spouse or PACS partner pays nothing (Articles 779, 777 and 796-0 bis).
The 20% main-residence reduction does not apply to a holiday home — it is a second home, so it is taxed on its full value (Article 764 bis).
File the inheritance-tax return within six months of a death in metropolitan France (Article 641); the notaire then publishes the deed that transfers the title (within 24 months).
Where several heirs share the property in joint ownership (indivision), any one of them can force a sale (Articles 815 and 816) — plan the ownership if the family wants to keep it.

How our French lawyers help with inheriting a French holiday home

Inheriting a French holiday home rarely goes the way a foreign family expects, and the details — forced heirship, a €100,000 allowance rather than a 20% main-home reduction, a six-month tax deadline, joint ownership that any heir can break — decide how much you pay and who ends up owning the property. We act for heirs, spouses and owners on exactly who inherits a French property, what the French inheritance tax will be, how to settle the estate through the notaire on time, and whether to keep the property in the family or sell it — including how to structure joint ownership, through a joint-ownership agreement or an SCI, so that the family keeps what it wants to keep.

Settle a French holiday home the right way

Talk to our French lawyers about the inheritance of your French property — who inherits, the French inheritance tax you will pay, the notaire process, and whether to keep or sell.

Speak to a French notary

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 value and location of the property, any will and any choice of law. Contact our French lawyers for advice on your situation before acting.