French will

[trevor]

We now have our house in france, but did not sort our french wills. Looking for a good legal service to help us. Any ideas, addresses, contact etc?

[Val_2]

Why not use the same notaire who dealt with your house purchase. All wills relating to french property etc HAVE to be done in France.

[Loiseau]

If you do make a French will, be careful about the wording of your UK will (if you have one) afterwards.  i.e. usually a UK will starts off saying "I revoke all other wills" or something.  Let the UK solicitor know that you have made French ones, so that the beginning of the UK one can be reworded to say something along the lines of  "...except my will in France".

Angela

[Baz]

[quote user="Val_2"] All wills relating to french property etc HAVE to be done in France.[/quote]

Unless the rules have recently change that is not the case. I did mine in the UK handwritten in French with the help of an UK French based advocate/notaire.

Baz

[Val_2]

Only going by what our notaire told us and you have to remember we are talking years ago, I have no idea what goes on in the UK nowadays and by whom and I certainly wouldn't trust any UK based french legal person anyway from reading other people's misfortunes with them on forums,plus the fact its bound to be more expensive over there.

[maureen]

Just go along to a french Notaire and get it done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is dead easy, he knows the laws here and will (pun) advise you on what to do. It is not expensive and my Noatire even found me two the two wittnesses to confirm my signature. He kept a copy and so did I.

maureen.

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Loiseau"]

 Let the UK solicitor know that you have made French ones, so that the beginning of the UK one can be reworded to say something along the lines of  "...except my will in France".

[/quote]

Surely one can only have one will - a last will & testement. If you had 2, covering the same property, then execution would be a nightmare, non?

[andyh4]

Nick,

you can certainly have more than one will and indeed may need to have them to cover interests in different countries - for example setting up trust funds for dependants in the UK.  What is essential however is that they do not contradict one another, since if they do the nightmare is exactly as you see it and the legal eagles will get rich at the expense of your heirs.

[maureen]

De tout façon it's not worth worrying about - you won't be here to see where the money goes anyway --- just let them fight it out, as families always do!!!

maureen.

[Bassman]

[quote user="maureen"]De tout façon it's not worth worrying about - you won't be here to see where the money goes anyway --- just let them fight it out, as families always do!!!
maureen.
[/quote]

 

LOL good point Maureen [;-)] the only one I'm concerned about is my wife as we have no children anyway, so once we have both gone who cares ? I keep trying to think of a good cause to leave it to and coming up with Cat Rescue places, as we love our cats it seems as good as anything else[;-)]

[Teamedup]

The sad thing is that the french government will take 60% of the sum before they let say a cat charity have it.

[Loiseau]

Perhaps the survivor of you two, Paul, should consider selling "en viager". At least that'll stop the state getting their 60 per cent AND give the survivor money/pension to live on...

Angela

[Alan Zoff]

I have just attended a lecture given by an excellent English lawyer specialising in European law. Very impressive. I told him I hadn't made a French will as it seemed to me that it was merely complicating matters as I have an English will that covers my worldwide assets. French law will determine what happens with the French house anyway so the French will is only of relevance to non-property assets in France.

A little to my surprise, he broadly agreed. He said too many people automatically make wills in both the foreign country and England (or Scotland, etc) but often would have done better to cover all matters in one. (This assumes of course that they still have assets in the home country and have not moved lock, stock and barrel to France.) OK, your family may have to convince the French authorities that your English will is valid in relation to some French non-property assets but that is not normally too difficult. He says if you make wills in both countries, the French authorities often ask to see the English one anyway (to make sure there is no conflict between them) and the English authorities often want to see the French one.

Above all, there are so many grey areas between the French and English law that the scope for ambiguity or oversights is greater if you have two wills than if the full position is laid out in one document. If you put in place two legal documents, both are legally binding and have to be interpreted, and if there is any conflict between the provisions, someone has a potentially expensive problem to sort out. You might take the precaution of asking your English lawyer to look at your French will, and vice versa, to check there are no conflicts - but do they know enough about each other's legal systems to vet them and spot potential problems?  And if you are going to go to this expense, you might as well pay one of them to do the whole job. 

What it boils down to is that people's circumstances are different and there isn't one automatic solution to suit all.

People buying French property may be following the lead of those buying property in Spain. (Due to Spanish legal and tax systems, it is almost always advisable to make a Spanish will if you own assets in Spain.)

I realise that the above rather goes against the general advice that is often given on this and other forums. The lawyer said he would be happy to speak to anyone who has doubts so I will PM his details to anyone who asks for them. (I might add that I have no connection with him or his - London - firm whatsoever.) 

[Teamedup]

Surely you are just talking about non french residents here. If one is a french resident then a UK will, will have no value in France. One should sort one's world wide affairs out from France.

 

[Alan Zoff]

Depends on the law that is to apply which is chiefly affected by "domicile" rather than "residence". Many people have property in France and are living in France but have not given up England as their "domicile" - their permanent (or rather long term) home. They may be "resident" in France for income tax purposes but still "domiciled" in England & Wales for UK inheritance tax and legal purposes. (Under English law, it can be quite difficult to lose your English domicile, especially if you have retained property in the UK.)

The important thing to decide is which law you want to apply to your estate. If you are of English domicile and English law applies to your will, then probate will be granted to the will in the UK if it satisfies validity requirements. For UK inheritance tax purposes, your estate will incur inheritance tax on your worldwide assets, usually with relief for tax suffered abroad on foreign assets.

A grant of probate of a will in England & Wales will often be accepted by foreign jurisdictions in relation to non-land/non-house assets, particularly if the value of those assets is modest. For larger values, the foreign juristiction will have further requirements but foreign companies (banks, etc) abroad will nonetheless then accept the instructions of the UK executors. Otherwise, the relatives of people living in the UK who buy shares in foreign companies or open accounts abroad would not be able to deal with those assets on the owner's death.

As I said, there is no "one fit suits all" here and it is a case of choosing the arrangement that best suits your circumstances, including tax implications and organising your affairs accordingly. If you still have assets in the UK, the best arrangement may well not be to have wills in both England and France....  (If all your assets and income sources are in France because you have decided to make France your permanent home, then of course you will only need a French will.)

I am an English lawyer who has spent the past 25 years dealing with English estates. I attended the lecture as an increasing number of clients (and now I myself!) own property abroad and problems are encountered when winding up those estates, sometimes made worse by the existence of a foreign will.  I therefore had concerns about the standard advice that if you own property both in England and abroad, you need a foreign will - the guy giving the talk confirmed that I was right to be concerned, and particularly in relation to France.

Perhaps one day, the laws across Europe will be truly standardised but I suspect that day could be some way off.

 

[Teamedup]

OK please tell me what the difference is between domiciled and resident. I don't believe that they are classed as the same thing by the british and the french.

 

Also in France, sorting one's affairs out does not necessarily mean making a will as one would in the UK. For many of us just having the right marriage contract can sort one's affairs out without the need for any other paper work whatsoever. Or just handwriting out a simple letter stating that the survivor has the usufruit, this does not need witnessing at all or even dating.

 

[maureen]

I cant understand all this reluctance to do things properly. If you are resident in France make a french Will - after all you live here!!!

maureen.

Otherwise listen to Alan Zoff his advice is excellent and correct!

[Alan Zoff]

Teamed Up - I don't disagree with you  if you have long had all your assets in France and have established your permanent home there. I thought I had made that clear. In that case, the person to contact is a French lawyer or notaire to advise on the terms of your will, if you need one.

The problems I was referring to concern people with assets both in France and elsewhere, which I imagine applies to many people using this forum. Wills in more than one country may be the answer for some of them - perhaps not for others, including me.

I have no doubt at all that France and England have different definitions for domicile and residence, which again is part of the problem. I can comment only from the English perspective. As far as the UK is concerned, residence is really a tax status, confirmed by quite rigid rules, in particular concerning the length of time in or away from the UK. Domicile on the other hand is a legal concept, based mainly on a starting point of your status at birth (domicile of origin) and subsequent actions/evidence to show a definite intention to establish a new legal status (domicile of choice). There are no statutes or fixed rules to say precisely what is needed to change your domicile but unless sufficient evidence of intention can be produced by your executors (demonstrating  the severance of all ties with the UK), the Inland Revenue (Capital Taxes Office) will argue that you are still domiciled in England & Wales (or Scotland, as the case may be) if it is in their interests to do so (i.e. if you have sufficient world-wide wealth to give rise to a UK inheritance tax liability).

My concern over the "two wills" approach relates more, however, to the scope for conflict between the two documents. Although we do not get much involved in European issues, the litigation department in my own firm gains a lot of its work because of the problems caused by incorrect or conflicting provisions in documents.  Apart from any problems raised by the different authorities in two jurisdictions, I can tell you from experience that people (beneficiaries) have a tendency to try to exploit defects in wills if they can see some financial advantage. I think it has to be sensible to try to minimise the risk of these occurring.

 

[Teamedup]

Thanks that was all I wanted to know about the domicile and residence differences.

 

And the 'intention' is something that the french also take into consideration too.

 

LOL I know about families and wills or lack of them and exploitating said wills, especially if there are provisions in both countries.

[bigjimbishop]

Roughly what should one expect to pay for a french will?

[Suze01]

You don't pay anything.

We went to the notaire we bought our house through for advice.  A french will must be hand-written in the hand of the person making the will.  It can then be kept where-ever you like but it can be lodged with a notaire where a record of it's existance will be placed on the national database, so that in the event of your death the person trying to find your will can ask at any notaire's office - can't remember just now how much this costs but it wasn't a huge sum of money. Of course, you can't disinherit your children, but for example my

will that at the moment is scribbled and sitting in our draw gives

my husband usufruit over my half of the house and my monies which automatically goes to our children (but not his child from a previous marriage).

So, making the will is dead easy [:$] but you need to be aware of inheritance regs.