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Ex step children


robkat

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A friend of mine who lives in France has told me that ex stepchildren can inherit a share in the french property. I find this hard to believe (my husband & I own a house in France but live in the UK at the moment).  I had 3 step children who I never met & who probably did not even know about me!  My ex is now dead & I have no idea where his children are (they are all in their 50's now). Can anyone enlighten me?

 

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EDIT: 

Robkat, I have only just realised that you might now have a second husband who is still alive?   What I say below would only apply if your first husband (now deceased) owned the French property with you at the time of his death.

If it is only with your present husband that you bought the French property, then of course there is NO way your ex stepchildren would inherit.

END EDIT

Your stepchildren should have inherited their share when their father died, as they were HIS children.

This happened to me, when my husband died. 

The notaire then strongly advised me to buy them out of their shares at the same time, so that the house (a holiday home) would be entirely mine to keep or sell in the future, as I wished.  However, in our case, we all have very frequent and amicable contact, plus we were in the process of selling one of two adjoining cottages, so luckily it was not too hard to find the buyout money.

And things are simplified now, with the remaining house being solely in my name.

I don't know what happens if you did not go through that inheritance process after the death of your husband.  (I expect it was traumatic enough to deal with, without trying to track the stepchildren down.)  Was the property you held then formally transferred to you, without any mention being made of his having children?   I expect somebody will be along soon to give you advice on whether you should stir up the process, or let it lie. [8-)]

On YOUR death, only your OWN children would inherit.  In my case, I should have liked my property equally divided among my daughter and stepchildren, but under French inheritance law that cannot happen; only my daughter will get it.

Angela

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Loiseau

It was my understanding that you can legally adopt your step children (even though not blood relative) and even at the adult age.  This then puts them on a level with your own children.

It might be worth looking into to see if my understanding is correct.

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[quote user="andyh4"]It was my understanding that you can legally adopt your step children (even though not blood relative) and even at the adult age.  This then puts them on a level with your own children. It might be worth looking into to see if my understanding is correct.[/quote]

The same advice has been mentioned to us in the past. Apparently, as there are many second marriages in France, adoption of step-children is much more common here than in the UK; where, of course, you can leave your worldly goods to whom you like.

Sue

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[quote user="andyh4"]

Loiseau

It was my understanding that you can legally adopt your step children (even though not blood relative) and even at the adult age.  This then puts them on a level with your own children.

It might be worth looking into to see if my understanding is correct.

[/quote]

According to 2 notaires in our area, this is only available to people from countries where their laws allow the adoption of adult children, which is not the case in the UK.

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