Morning all,
If you haven’t yet seen it / heard it - I’ve done a podcast with @thomasmarron from Blevins Franks all about French inheritance issues. And how you can avoid them!
Here’s the link and if you have any questions - don’t hesitate to ping Tom a message.
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FWIW when I moved to France I engaged Blevins Franks to help reorganise my assets. I will not go in to details but it didn’t go well to the extent that Blevins Franks waived all fees. My message is, although I expect Blevins Franks have some brilliant people and they have much supporting collateral (books, presentations etc), be wary and be sure the individual you are engaging with really is as good as the organisation. Of course this applies to any advisor from any organisation!
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I spoke to Blevins Franks a couple of years ago in anticipation of moving to France - the impression I got (and they sort of said this, but not in so many words) was that I was not rich enough for them to be interested in dealing with me. 
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I defer to experts, but that my own experience is that many “wealth managers” or equivalents, have informal or formal minimum asset requirements for their clients. Before moving to France, I rashly searched for wealth manager asset requirements,.and the consistent answer back was a minimum requirement of about €500k in financial or investable assets, ignoring property for this purpose. Presumably BF ignored your stately pile and rolling acres when giving you the cold shoulder?
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Well since I have no stately pile or acres of any sort, and my pension funds are nowhere near £500K, that’s probably why.
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If they’re offering free advise of any sort, their goal is without any doubt to sell you stuff that’s to their advantage, usually life insurance.
But they also offer paid advise which I imagine is impartial and probably good advise.
Got a French Inheritance question?
Go see a French Notaire that understands both French and U.K. law and speaks fluent English.
How inheritance is shared between the survive spouse and their step children is rather complicated.
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Exactly what I am looking for - any recommendations would be very welcome.
I know of an excellent one in Cahors if that’s not too far away.
Thank you. No, not too far away. Can you let me have details please.
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PM sent.
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Thank you
Hello. Could you elaborate on what you think was incorrect? Thanks.
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Hello. I agree - good advice doesn’t come for free. I don’t charge for the initial exploratory discussion, but a fee applies to any advice (always outlined and agreed in advance).
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The inheritance split for between the surviving spouse resident in France and their step children (biological children of the deceased spouse) who aren’t French citizens nor resident in France can be rather different to the 3-way split described in the video depending on the deceased spouse’s will.
Thank you for your reply, but on this occasion you are wrong. The allowance for stepchildren is currently only €1,594. Can you provide a citation or reference for your remark about the €100k tax-free succession allowance being available to stepchildren? If not, I’d be grateful if you could delete your comment, and I will do the same with mine.
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If that were true (it isn’t) a lot of my troubles would be over… 
Argumentative tosh removed.
Sorry, but the burden is on you here to correct and/or delete your misinformation. If it came from your notaire, I suggest you take it up with them. (Notaires are far from infallible).
I’ve read widely about the subject & there’s very clearly a derisory abattement of 1594€ for step children before they pay 60% inheritance tax.
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