My partner and I are planning our future life in France, hopefully. We are looking for a home in France, while still living in the US, and intend to move to France permanently. I am a US citizen, and my partner is a dual US/EU citizen. We are not yet married but intend to marry soon.
We are navigating a ‘blended family’ situation, as my partner has adult children from a previous relationship. My primary concern is estate planning—specifically, ensuring that if my spouse passes away, I am not in a position where their children would have ownership or control over our home or my personal assets. A usufruct is not something I would accept.
I understand that French succession law has strict rules regarding ‘protected heirs’ (forced heirship). Could anyone share advice or point me toward the right type of professional (e.g., a notaire specializing in international/cross-
border law) to help us structure our goals?
No answers, just more questions from me, I’m afraid.
Where do you plan on getting married? The law of where you get married may have an influence on any estate management.
Will you draw up a marriage contract? Obviously, this could have an impact on the management of the estate’s assets in the event of death.
Rather than a notary, a lawyer specializing in French family law and succession might be a better alternative. I don’t know anyone personally, so can’t make a recommendation.
Above everything else, being married holds more weight in inheritance issues than just being partners or even PACs’d. From my own experience of this, being married under UK law is strong enough to hold sway with the French system and is known as Separation des beins and worked for me regarding inheritance of a jointly owned French property for which I received half of the defunct’s share as well as my own 50% and having two children, they received 12.5% each of the remaining 25% of their dad’s half which meant they could not oust me from the property as I was the major shareholder in so many words but……anything I did like selling the family car and the new lorry, they had to sign attestations they were OK with it. If you marry here in France there are different régimes of marriage depending on how you want to guard inheritance issues and that also includes divorce which can force a property sale in many cases so that both spouses have equal gains from that if they bought in joint names originally. It is a minefield and note that a Notaire here is an agent for the treasury and therefore a government tax collector from inheritances. I suggest an advocate specialising in inheritance law if you are worried and there are many out there and others who are experts in family law so the choice is yours but could be money well worth spent if you want it on paper. Most of us brits who married before living here are protected by our marriage system so its not a great issue unless it is a blended family whereby a will can be made but French law is the one that is followed. Don’t let inheritance issues put you off living here, remember you can’t take it with you and as a very wise French friend once told me, none of us owns what we consider our property in France, we are merely caretakers for the next owners and so on.
You are correct. French Law protects all children from either partner and requires them to be treated equally. A 2021 amendment also made this worse and said that where a foreign law is set to govern an inheritance share-out, if the testator or one of their children was a resident in the EU or was an EU citizen, and if the foreign law does not include mechanisms protective of children’s rights, the notaire should contact the person’s children and offer them the right to claim a ‘compensatory levy’ out of any French-situated part of the estate up to the value of their French ‘reserved portion’. This would be an obligatory step if the children were not considered to have been sufficiently provided for.
For British people there has been a recent clarification that means that we can use British Law in determining our estate, and because of family protections already existing in UK Law we can bypass this 2021 requirement. For situations like mine, with a blended family and not wanting to provide equally to all children this is a relief.
However it still leaves the punitive inheritance tax situation, where the amounts free of tax are small to those considered not direct family. And the tax is 60%. For example, my husbands’ children are not considered my direct relations so I can give very little (€1.6k) IHT free.
However I know nothing about the position for US citizens.
I know many older people have left France because of this so investigate carefully. There are few properly experienced France-UK inheritance advisors but perhaps more in US?
And look into a clause Tontine when buying your house which will protect a surviving partner (it’s as if other person never existed).
Purely a side note to your interesting post…I was intrigued by your comment which made me look up what if anything the (very generous) EU freedom of movement regulations (that apply to non EU spouses of EU citizens) say about any required length of marriage or prior EU residence - in order to benefit from those regs. The answer, which slightly surprised me, is that there are no requirements concerning the length of any marriage prior to coming to the EU, nor are there requirements for prior residence in an EU country. The only marital requirement was that the marriage should be genuine!!
Umm…is there a typo or has something changed that I wasn’t aware of?
AFAIAA the abattement for non-family inheritors (step children, someone down the pub, etc.) is 1594€ per person, after which it’s 60% tax of what’s left.
I’m intrigued how you got to 17K€, unless your husband has 10 children & you’ve rounded up the abattement a bit
From my limited ability to self research, it looks like a Tontine would not be a viable option for my partner and I, as we have a significant enough age gap.
There is a big difference between being a temporary caretaker of a house and being legally tethered to a (hostile) blended family. A usufruct means I would need the adult children’s permission just to sell or remodel my own home. I am looking for full independence and total control over my living space, not a lifetime of forced legal ties.
I’m not sure it’s possible to achieve complete freedom in terms of the disposal of the estate even with an SCI. You may already have read the following. It sounds like a bit of a minefield, assuming you do actually become resident in France and don’t plan to just keep the French house as a holiday home:
Have you considered not getting married? Your dual-national partner could move to France easily as an EU national. You could move there in your own right as a US national - there would be more hoops to jump through but it’s perfectly possible if you have a certain income and health insurance to get you started. Lots of Americans on this forum seem to have managed it.
You could buy a house using your own money and your partner could simply move in.
If they die, it’s all yours. And - if you’re concerned about them being left homeless in the event of your own untimely demise - you could leave your house and/or money to them (assuming you have no kids yourself).
One incidental point. Is your partner aware that if they become resident in France and die there, the long arm of the French taxman may reach out to their worldwide assets? They might want to look into ways of mitigating that in order to shield their children from a hefty French tax bill on their death.
The EU freedom of movement regulations also cater for unmarried couples (ie that include 1 EU citizen, 1 non EU citizen) moving to an EU country that is not their own. France - at its discretion (ie it’s not automatic unlike for married couples) - may give a 5 year carte de séjour membre de famille européenne to the non EU citizen, provided a durable relationship of at least 12 months can be proved. After 5 years, a permanent residence CdS can be applied for. You could of course work throughout that entire period in France under EU rules.
What though, if not married, is the implication of inheritance tax?
We lived in the UK, unmarried, for 20 years but were strongly advised to marry on coming to France. So we did.
That certainly is the usual advice.
But the poster wants to buy a property with their (older) future spouse and become resident in France, secure in the knowledge that they will have full control over the home if the would-be spouse dies. They’re not interested in arrangements involving a life interest.
I’m not sure that’s achievable given that the partner has children from a previous relationship. Must be a pretty common dilemma though.
Re inheritance tax if they weren’t married, presumably the survivor would get clobbered for tax on anything the deceased left them.
That sounds like potentially a good way to go for this person.
Or how about if the poster came to France and bought a house in their name. And then married the partner under the “séparation des biens” regime.
If the spouse died, the poster’s home would not be included in the estate.
The spouse could also leave the poster something in their will, and the tax would probably be less than if they had never married.
The poster would also have to think about what would happen to the spouse if the poster died first. I think under séparation des biens, there’s scope for letting the survivor stay on in the home under an “usufruct” arrangement. If they were comfortable with that.
I wouldn’t be able to afford a home with my own money, as I am actually disabled from birth and unable to work. And I read that my partner wouldn’t be able to just give me money to buy a home myself, it would be seen as a disguised gift and their children could claw it back. A tontine is also not an option because of our age gap, there’s no “gamble” who is likely to outlive the other…
Others will correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think there’s any way for your partner to become resident in France and buy a property over which you would have 100% control if they died. Their kids would surely always have some kind of a stake in it.
You’re probably best to stay resident in the US and keep France for nice long breaks. It will save you a lot of paperwork too!
In France, when your spouse dies you get half the estate and the children get the other half. If you aren’t married you are no relation and pay top whack on taxes on anything you may inherit if you inherit anything.
France is big in transmission through family so your best bet is possibly to get a house with your soon to be spouse worth at most half his assets so it can be earmarked as being for you, the rest being divvied up as prescribed by the code civil. As long as the value meets the rules for division that should work. You will get fewer stocks and shares le cas échéant but you’ll have your house.
In French law a person’s children rightly get some protection from enterprising types who marry one of their parents. Your own personal wealth remains yours and not susceptible to being clawed at (as you put it) by your stepchildren as they are no relation to you.
Vero, I got half of my OH 50% which left 25% shared between our two children and in the eyes of the law, made me the major owner but still had to consult the kids to do anything but they could never oust me from the property or take over. At the time they also got €100k tax allowance on their parts, probably less now as it was 14 years ago nearly
Blood is stronger than having a non married partner here, partners get nothing unless they financed part of the property and can prove it on paper. My old neighbours got married after 27 years as a couple and three kids so it would not complicate inheritance as the female partner was not entitled to a single euro being as the property was in the name of her man and then they changed it to a marriage regime
