Death of wife property transfer

[Dean]

Hi, my wife passed away a couple of months ago and I'm finally getting round to sorting out a property we own in France. The property is in joint names and I am also the sole beneficiary of her estate as per her UK will. I seem to remember adding a tontine clause when we purchased the property.

I've now been told by the local notaire that the property my wife owned has to be recorded in a notarial deed costing around £5,000 after paying for fees, valuations and translation fees. Is this correct as it seems extremely expensive compared to the token admin fees paid to the UK land registry.? Regards Dean

[Loiseau]

Welcome to the forum, Dean. And toutes mes condoléances on the loss of your wife.

I have no idea about the money required by the notaire, nor anything about the aftermath of the tontine option, but it wouldn’t surprise me. After my husband's death, it all seemed to cost quite a lot to sort out our résidence secondaire - though we weren’t en tontine, and four children had to have their cuts.

[CeeJay]

Dean, I'm afraid that the Notaire is probably right in that all his fees have a fixed remuneration plan. My wife passed away last year and have only just settled the aftermath but the Notaire's fees came to around Euros 4 thousand.

[pomme]

Hello Dean, my condolences on your loss.

I don't have any experience on this subject, but I've done some searches for you which I hope may be of help to you.

It was also of interest to us as we have rewritten our wills this year and have been documenting our finances and succession for our children, who live in England and know little French.

If you haven't already done so, you should be able to get a breakdown of the quoted figure from the notaire. If I understand the details in the links below, most of the charges should be made up of fixed fees and variable fees based on the property value.

An English will allows donations without the problems of the stricter "blood line" French inheritance law. However, property in France is still subject to French inheritance taxation.

A tontine clause only relates to succession rules and inheritance tax. If I remember correctly it also only relates to nil inheritance tax on a property value below about €76K (a tontine clause doesn't have to be between husband and wife so taxes above that figure may be applicable). But in your case there is no inheritance tax between spouses when the property passes to you.

But it seems you still need to pay for the property registration. From what I have found there does seem to be a lot to pay, and it is based on the total value of the property rather than a 50% share.

These two links may be of help https://paris.notaires.fr/sites/default/files/conf_septembre_2014.pdf (there is an example of a €400K on pages 7-9 - but it does help by showing what needs to be considered and how the rates are calculated)

and

https://www.capital.fr/votre-argent/heritage-tout-ce-qu-il-faut-savoir-pour-evaluer-les-frais-de-notaire-1027842

[ericd]

Hello Dean. Sincere condolences. If you are unsure linguistically, you can use my recommended UK based Solicitor AND French Notaire (all under one same roof). You can contact them here http://www.anglofrenchlaw.co.uk/ and refer yourself from Eric