married no children !

[Pads]

Hello my husband and I have no children and as we are now getting on its unlikley we ever will.

Where do we stand on inheritance laws, we want to be able to both own our house (which we are in the midle of bying ) and not have to pay inheritance taxes if one shold die . can we use  the "communaute universelle" as it is both of our savings with which we are bying the house with? which makes us partners in the ownership.

will we have to leave our house to unknow nieces and nephews?

or do we have any choice in the matter? I can not beleive this has not been taken to some higher court in europe before now. My husband and I have worked hard all our lives to be told we have to give it to people we dont know or respect annoys the hell out of me(am I the only one?)

but I gues once im dead I wont care but can they really turf me out once my husband dies? (as i have heard) 

[Kitty]

Check out the other threads about this.  There is another one on the go about 'why we are not buying in France' or something like that.  It's not just a problem of who gets what, when one of you dies, the other will incur hefty inheritance tax (at a lesser rate if you are married).

I suppose that, in the UK, we are used to being able to "disinherit" our relatives or (said more positively) choose our inheritors.

When my husband and I elected for a 'clause tontine', the vendors thought that we were trying to do our children our of their rights (even though they are all very young).

[Phil the Francophile]

With communaute universelle you are tax exempt, ie. ownership will switch to the other party without any inheritance tax payable. When it comes to the final crunch however, the French pecking order of inheritance will apply, that is children first, then parents, brothers and sisters, neices and nephews, and if there is absolutely no-one else, then either the conditions of a will, failing that the state gets the lot. You cannot put anything in a will that appears to disinherit your relations in accordance with the above rules.

Fun game isn't it!!