Inheritance - son from previous marriage

[Washy]

Sorry to bring up this old chesnut again but it is praying on my mind. We have a son from my husband's previous marriage. I brought him up as his mum died in childbirth. All was lovely until we decided to go to France. The son turned a bit nasty and wanted his 'inheritance' there and then - long story I won't go into. So now there is some animosity between us. He is 21 and living in the UK.
We live in France and have pensions, life insurance and a small investment through the UK.

If my husband dies before me will I have to share everything with my son? Also I have read that as I did not adopt my son then I do not have 'usufruit' right to reside the property?

I would not want to live in our present property alone as I could not cope with the wood cutting, isolation etc. If somehow I do have a right to live carry on living here then decide to sell, how much would I have to share with my son.

I have no intention of disinheriting him but I do not want to be destitute, especially with regards to pensions, insurance and investment.

Any help and suggestions of responsible ways around what I think could prove to be a difficult situation for me in the future would be greatly appreciated.

[Richardbk]

taken from http://vosdroits.service-public.fr Répartition en présence d'enfant(s) non issu(s) des deux époux

Le conjoint survivant recueille en présence d'enfant(s) non issu(s) des deux époux le quart de la pleine propriété des biens. 

L(es) enfant(s) recueille(nt) les trois quarts de la propriété. 

The first point to note is that this will not apply if you have community marriage. If you have a standard UK marriage the default will be a french separation of assets - hence the above will apply. It will be of course difficult to change your marriage regime, as you need agreement from the son.

I am not a lawyer and you definetely need to see a notaire, but my understanding is that :

if there are children of the deceased from previous marriages, the usefruct option can not be used. e.g the surviving spouse must take 1/4 of the deceased assets. This would apply with or without a will.

Then I'm not entirely sure how this is than related to the previous divisions laws - can anybody else help 

Previously with one heir 1/2 of the deceased assets would be taken by the heir, the remaining 1/4 (1/4 by right from above)  could be left in a will to the surviving spouse, but now I believe the assets are in effected divided into 3 - as the spouse is treated as a type of reserved heir - this means that the son would only receive 1/3.

In any case it would seem that the son has a claim of 1/3 - 1/2 of your husbands assets that would need to be paid. You should see a notaire and in any case ensure that your wills are satisfactory.

best regards

 

Richard

[Teamedup]

You really do need to see a notaire or two about this.

 

 

[Tourangelle]

I would agree with Teamed up (nice that you're back) and when you do see a notaire you could ask about donation au dernier vivant. My parents-in-law had this and when my father-in-law died it did seem to simplify things for her, she got the bank accounts and so on. It seemed to be that they could leave certain things to each other using this, and it did in practice work. I don't really know the details though.

[Washy]

Could my son then force me to sell and only take 1/4?  I am on my way to the notaire or avocat?  Thanks for the comments.

[Richardbk]

I believe under the new laws that the son can not force you as such to sell. That part owed to him could be paid in cash, but there are time limits as to when this needs to be paid.

You need to see a notaire rather than an avocat.

regs

Richard

[Dave&Olive]

we have the same problem as you and to cut a long story short the advice from our notaire was like i posted before was

           " DONOT DIE IN FRANCE "

           Dave

[Iceni]

We have the same problem except we have step-children on both sides and our Notaire seems to have sorted it for us, but we did organise this when we bought our property. You CAN disinherit step children if they are the children of the first to die but this only relates to property and you have to have this sorted when you buy or within 2 years of purchase.

We have been back to our Notaire since reading other postings on this board saying we cannot do what we have done and she had all the books out and confirmed we can do what we have done. We used En Tontine - there will probably be tax to pay on the death of the first person but the property then becomes the property of the survivor.

What happens to all the other monies (if there are any) I presume that they belong to the remaining spouse if they are in joint names or are the named beneficary?????? The Notaire told us that this was not a problem as it is all in joint names.

Ho hum, nothing is simple.

[Tourangelle]

as I understand it, if you do have usufruit then there is no way that your son could make you sell your home. however if you did sell it he could object if, for example he did not think that the price was high enough (he would have to prove it). Definitely ask about donation au dernier vivant!

[Loiseau]

We were in your situation (though without the animosity), as my husband had three children from a previous marriage.  We were advised by a notaire to make a "donation entre époux" (presumably the same as the "donation au dernier vivant" mentioned above), to give the survivor the usufruct (the right to go on using our two houses, and their furniture).  This does not mean that the children won't get their cut eventually; it just means that they cannot force you to sell it while you still want to live in it.
When my husband died, this did indeed seem to smooth the way for the notaire. 

We were in the process of selling one of the houses, so this went through.  The children then *had* to have their cut of it; I effectively received just over three-quarters of the sale price.

The notaire did advise me to buy the children out of the other house, that I was keeping, as he said you never know what lies down the line in the way of divorces etc.  I took his advice, and paid out just under a quarter of its market value - though I might have been more reluctant to do this had I not just sold that first house and had some disposable cash.

You have to talk to a notaire about this - SOON.   (Sorry to be morbid, but a friend in France has just died very suddenly, and it makes me realise how we never know what's round the corner...)

Angela