French inheritance laws on a holiday property

[mops]

Can anyone offer me any advice please.  I currently have a holiday home in the Dordogne.  My husband died in November and I would like to know what is the first step I must take to put my affairs in order in France.  My husband and I were married in France (1968) and have a livret de famille (I think it's the regime of separation des biens as it was before contrat de mariage time).  We have four grown up children.  Although I am not intending to sell the property immediately (far too soon to make important decisions that I may regret later) I am anxious not to get into trouble by not declaring my husband's death.  I have no other assets in France, only a current account with a local bank and I am tax resident in the UK where my main home is.  Any help would be much appreciated as I am having sleepless nights over this. 

 

 

[Pickles]

If you work your way through the FAQ on French Inheritance law at the top of this section of the forum, you should get quite a few of the answers that you are seeking. Bear in mind that you also need to consider the French TAX situation if the value of your husband's half of the property is significant - ie if the part left to you exceeds 76K euros in value.

Pickles

[Teamedup]

My condolences Mops.

Sorry I can't help you, you really need to talk to at least one notaire.

[lacote0_0]

I am sorry to raise them at such a time, but I think a number of questions arise:

1. Did you live in France or UK straight after the wedding? If not, then I should have thought your regime matrimonial was one of communaute.

2. Was your husband French?

3. Is the property in joint names, or just your husband's?

4. Have you registered the death in France or at the consulate?

[Tony F Dordogne]

You no longer have to register a death in France with the Consulate.  From 1 January 2006, they have imposed an horrendous charge for doing so, £60 or thereabouts, and EU legislation now means that copies of the etats civil in France are enough and that UK companies - banks, building societies, insurance companies - are now obliged to accept them, with appropriate forms from the Mairie if required.  I did 4 of these last year so got into the Consulate or not discussion a lot - it's not required at all now.

Sorry for your loss Mops.  If I've read your OP correctly you are UK resident and the French house was a holiday home.  In that case you need copies of the death certificate to show the notaire, bank etc but shouldn't need much more than that to get things moving.  However, if your husband was a French citizen, you may wish to notify the commune in which he was born as there is space on the birth record for other events, marriage and deaths etc.

[Loiseau]

I am very sorry to hear about your loss, Mops.

I don't think you need to have sleepless nights, though.  Not about the French property anyway.

I too have a holiday home in France. When my husband died, the notaire was brilliant, and got on with sorting everything out.  As has been said above, it will all depend on what your marriage regime was etc.

In our case it was a UK marriage, which had been classed by the French as "separation des biens".  The children all had to have their set share, which might total nearly a quarter of the house's value.  In fact, I think that them actually having *money* to the appropriate value could have been deferred - with their agreement - until the day I should wish to sell the house, but of course they would get it in the end - no question. 
However, my notaire advised me to buy them out immediately so that the house would be mine to do what I wanted with during my lifetime.  At the time, we were in the throes of selling the cottage next door, which we also owned, so I was able to pay the children off with some of the proceeds of that and it didn't seem such a big deal as having to put my hand in my pocket and produce the cash.

What made me laugh was that he wanted to contact my UK solicitor to check whether my husband had any more children than the ones I had declared!  I don't know how you would expect *them* to know!!   Especially as it was a London firm that we had only been using for about a year.  I think the notaire imagined some cosy little market town where everybody knew everybody else's business...  I pointed out to him that the UK solicitor would only ask *me*, so it would be a lot cheaper all round if he took my word for it!   Though I did have to drum up a couple of local people in France who had known my husband and me for some time, to come and sign in front of the notaire to the effect that they were not aware of any other children.  It was obviously just a formality, as they couldn't possibly have known more than I did.

So I would say, perhaps take copies of the children's birth certificates too.  You do need to say exactly where and when each of them was born - though I expect you can remember that!  The French will still like to see it on official paper though.

Oh, and if either of you was previously divorced, they always like to see the certificate for that.

Did you do a "donation entre epoux" in France during your husband's lifetime?  Take a note of when and where that was done, as it smoothes the way enormously.

A friend of mine who had lost her husband 7 years earlier had never got around to getting their French holiday property sorted out (in fact it was just a ruin, that they had never done up), in some quite different bit of France.  As my notaire had been so good at all my affairs, I got him onto her much older case too, and he got it sorted perfectly easily in a few months.  It helped that he had had quite a lot of experience with British clients and the possible complications, so was not phased by it.  (Sorry, he has since retired, so I can't offer you his contact details.  I imagine that in the Dordogne there must be many notaires who would have experience of sorting out inheritance for British clients though.)

Sorry for rabbiting on. 

Good luck with it all. And don't have any more sleepless nights!

Angela