Who gets the child's share if the child dies?

[Tony F Dordogne]

I suspect this may only be finally answered by lawyers but here goes:

Scenario:  new husband and wife with children from previous relationships with property in France, wife and her child with previous husband die.  New husband, wife's son by another previous relationship and his children by previous relationship all extant.

Do the rights of ownership of the dead child to a share of the property when her mum dies disappear to be shared by her brother and other half-siblings or do her rights revert to her biological father who is technically her next-of-kin?

[hastobe]

Under UK law there are special rules which apply when there are simultaneous deaths.  These rules determine the deemed order of death and hence how the rules of intestacy / inheritance tax apply.  I would imagine it is a similar situation under French law and there is a deemed order of death / inheritance pattern. As you suggested, I think you would need to take the advice of a French lawyer.

Kathie

[scalehill]

The way I understand it, under French law, when deaths occur en masse as with a car crash, each person is deemed to have lived sufficiently long enough to inherit. This as distinct from UK law where most Wills carry a 28 day period of surviving the deceased. When I checked out my own situation on this, which is not dissimilar, I was told that my ex-wife might end up scooping the pot.

http://tinyurl.com/r8s8q

[hastobe]

Its probably not relevant (hence not mentioning in the first post!) but the rules in the UK are:

If two or more persons die in circumstances in which the order

of their deaths is uncertain, for example in a road accident, the

devolution of their estates is governed by s.184 Law of Property

Act 1925.

This provides

• that the deaths are presumed to have
  occurred in order of seniority so that the younger is presumed to
  have survived the elder,

but

• this is subject to any court order,
  and
• where the deaths are of husband and wife
  or civil partners and the elder died
  intestate, the intestacy rules apply as if the younger spouse or
  civil partner had not survived the elder.

Kathie

[Benjamin]

Tony

I sent you a PM yesterday attached to the original PMs between us but I'm not sure if you got it.

Benjamin