What happens to my French estate if I don't make any plans?

Reader's Question: What happens to my estate if I don't leave a will in France?

If you do not leave a will, your estate will be distributed differently depending on your family situation. If you have a spouse and children, everything will be divided between them. If your family does not fit this description, your assets will be passed on to other relatives. However, there are a few important things to consider.

First, if you are married, the question of the treatment of your marriage comes into play to determine what your estate will actually consist of upon your death and whether some property may automatically become the property of your spouse and therefore outside the scope of your estate. If you purchased a home jointly with another person, you may own it automatically if you included a tontine clause in the contract.

Second, there are established rules for intestate succession.

Finally, the surviving spouse or civil partner has certain rights to live in the marital home. Spouses have a "matrimonial property regime" which determines how property is owned by each spouse. In France, the default is the public community regime, reduced to acquisitions. In this case, each spouse "takes" property that they owned before the marriage, as well as that which was gifted or inherited during the marriage. However, property acquired during the marriage is community property, even if it was purchased or earned by only one spouse. In this case, the deceased spouse's inheritance includes all of his or her own property before the marriage and half of the joint property during the marriage.

If you married under the property division regime (which may be the case for many people married in the UK, for example, although there are exceptions), there is no property that will be automatically divided, so a deceased person's inheritance includes anything they have earned or bought themselves.

Finally, if the couple has a common property regime, which must be requested from the notary, all property acquired during the marriage is common property, and property owned before the marriage can be "transferred" into this regime if this is agreed upon at its creation.

What happens to the estate if there are children and a surviving spouse?

If you share all of your children with your spouse, the amount they inherit will depend on the decision of your husband or wife. They may decide to keep all of the property in temporary use, or they may decide to keep a quarter of the property in full ownership. If your spouse decides to keep the property in temporary use, the children will inherit real estate, money, etc. in equal shares but will not be able to dispose of it in the near future, although they will have to pay inheritance tax if the total value of their inheritance exceeds €100,000 (note that property in the form of temporary use is valued lower than full ownership).

If the surviving parent chooses to keep one-quarter of the estate in full ownership, the remaining three-quarters will be divided evenly among the children.

If you're not married

If you have a partner but you are not married, they have no rights, even if you are registered partners. If you are unmarried and have children, all your property will go to them, divided evenly between them. If you have no children, your estate will be divided evenly between your parents and siblings. If you have no surviving parents, your estate will pass between your siblings.

Who else can inherit property in the absence of a will?

Given the above, there is a legal order of inheritance when a person has no surviving spouse, and each category inherits everything if they are present. The property is divided equally among relatives from both sides of the family - the father's and the mother's. Uncles and aunts, cousins... and if there are none, the property goes to the state. If you have grandchildren, usually your spouse and children inherit everything, and your grandchildren receive nothing. However, if your child has died and has children, they will inherit in their place. This rule also applies to great-grandchildren, who can only inherit in the event of their parent's and grandparent's - your child's - death. It should be noted that the children and grandchildren of siblings can also inherit in their place.