France · Inheritance entitlement

Who inherits under French law — and what each heir is entitled to

A clear written legal opinion on your French inheritance question, prepared and signed by a lawyer practising in France.

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French succession turns on questions that rarely have an obvious answer to a family abroad: how much of the estate is reserved for the children (the réserve héréditaire), what the surviving spouse takes — and may keep, including the right to stay in the family home; what the marriage regime puts in the estate in the first place; whether an assurance-vie sits outside it altogether; and which country’s law governs — because under Brussels IV a foreign national can often choose their own national law, a choice France’s 2021 statute was designed to blunt but which, as matters stand in 2026, does most of the work. A written Inheritance Entitlement opinion answers your specific question, in plain English, signed by your lawyer.

One written opinion, one fixed fee

1 · Tell us what’s happened

In your own words — it costs nothing to ask.

2 · Your fee, in writing

One fixed fee for the estate, confirmed in writing before you commit.

3 · Your signed opinion

Signed by Colin Carroll, once the official will-register certificate is in.

What you get. One written Inheritance Entitlement Opinion for the estate, signed by Colin Carroll. From the facts and documents you give us, it answers:

which country’s law governs the inheritance;
how a married couple’s property is split first, where there was a marriage;
who inherits;
each heir’s share;
how lifetime gifts count;
the surviving spouse’s right to stay in the family home, where it applies.

It ends with what this means for you and the next steps.

One fixed fee for the estate: €950 plus VAT where it applies.

We confirm it in writing before you commit.

VAT: if you live in Portugal or anywhere else in the EU, Portuguese VAT at 23 % is added to our fee. If you live outside the EU — for example in the UK or the USA — no Portuguese VAT is charged. Businesses registered for VAT in another EU country pay no Portuguese VAT and account for it themselves.

Not included. A second opinion on another lawyer’s work is a separate service (€1,350). Anything else your matter needs — for example a claim to reduce a will or a gift, tax returns, or running the estate — is quoted in writing before any work starts.

Credit towards running the estate. If you ask us to handle the Succession Administration of the same estate within 90 days, we credit 50 % of the opinion fee against that work.

Before you order. We will act for you alone. If your family later wants to agree the division together — for example on Accorda — we cannot then act for the whole family on the same estate, unless every heir agrees in writing after being told we first acted for you. Your opinion is yours: your family may read it but may not rely on it.

▶ Start — tell us what’s happened in France

Why the opinion takes a few days

Before we give any figure, we obtain the official will-register certificate, so the opinion rests on the official record, not on assumptions. It arrives at the registry’s pace; we tell you when it is in.

Not ready yet? Try the free estimator

Try it free, right here: choose a family situation for a general illustration of who inherits when French law governs the estate. And does it govern your case? If the person made their home in France — yes, unless their will chose the law of a country whose nationality they held. If they lived in England or Ireland and their will expressly chooses their own national law — no. If that clause is missing, or there is no will, the house or flat in France usually comes back under French rules after all — though money and other belongings generally follow the law of home. That is exactly what the written opinion answers.

Where is the property?Does a spouse survive?Children of the deceased

If there is no will

If there is no will, the answer depends on whether every child is a child of both of you.

If they all are: your husband or wife chooses either a life interest (usufruit — the right to use everything, or its income, for life) over the whole estate, with the children owning it equally; or one-quarter outright, with the children sharing the other three-quarters equally (3/8 each).

If any child is from another relationship: your husband or wife takes one-quarter outright, with no choice, and the children share three-quarters.

The choice belongs to the husband or wife. If a child asks in writing and no choice is made within three months, the law treats it as the life interest.

What the law protects against a will or gifts

The children's réserve héréditaire — the part the law protects for them — is two-thirds of the estate. A will or lifetime gifts can freely pass one-third. Where there are children, the law protects no fixed share for the husband or wife against a will — the life-interest or quarter above is what the law gives when there is no will.

Not included in this estimate

With children who are all the couple's own, the husband or wife chooses between the life interest and the quarter — we show both.
Married under shared property (communauté)? The shared property is split first; only the deceased's half and own property is shared out.
A PACS partner or unmarried partner is not an heir under these rules; a PACS partner has a right to stay in the home for one year.
A life-insurance policy (assurance-vie) usually sits outside the estate.
Lifetime gifts count against shares (colação · colación · rapport · collazione).
A child who died before the parent is replaced by his or her own children — not shown.
Debts, tax and the value of each asset are not assessed.
Which country's law governs at all is not assessed — see below.

This estimate is for the textbook family only: a husband or wife still married to the deceased, the children all living, no will, no lifetime gifts, and one country's law governing the estate. If anything else is true — a will, gifts, a child who died first, a divorce or separation, a partner, a second family, property in another country — the answer is our written opinion, on your family's real facts.

For your family's actual facts, a lawyer's signed written opinion — fixed fee, confirmed in writing before you commit.

Which country's law applies? These rules govern when the person lived in that country — unless their will chose the law of a country whose nationality they held, which the EU Succession Regulation allows. A British citizen choosing English law, for example, is then free of these fixed shares, though English law has its own family claims, and France can still let children take back their protected share from French property in some cases. Whether a clause works for your family is part of our written opinion.

Broad national default rules, for orientation only — and true only for the textbook family. In real life, few estates are: gifts made during a lifetime count against shares (colação · colación · rapport · collazione), the marriage property regime decides what is even in the estate before anyone inherits, the family home carries special rights for the widowed spouse, regional regimes (notably in Spain) rewrite the fractions, and foreign wills, usufructs and earlier deaths bend every number above. And “spouse” here means a married spouse: an unmarried or de facto partner — união de facto, PACS or concubinage, pareja de hecho, convivente di fatto — generally takes no automatic share, with narrow national and regional exceptions. That is why the answer that matters is a lawyer’s written one, on your family’s actual facts. This is general information, not legal advice on your situation. Read the full guide or tell us what’s happened.

Common questions

Who inherits under French law?

French law reserves fixed shares (the réserve héréditaire) for the children — half of the estate for one child, two-thirds between two, three-quarters between three or more — with the spouse a reserved heir only where there are no descendants, though the surviving spouse has important rights over the family home. With no will, the husband or wife takes either a life interest in everything or a quarter outright (art. 757) and the children the rest. A written opinion confirms exactly who inherits, and what share, on your facts.

Can I choose English (or my own) law instead of French forced heirship?

Usually yes: under the EU Succession Regulation a foreign national can elect the law of their nationality in their will. France's 2021 rule (the prélèvement compensatoire) was designed to blunt such elections. We have found no Cour de cassation decision applying it so far, and whether English law's family-provision rules count as “protection for the children” is not yet settled by a court. A well-drafted election does much of the work; we confirm whether it has been done, and whether it works, as part of the opinion.

What does an Inheritance Entitlement opinion cost?

One fixed fee for the estate: €950 plus VAT where it applies — we confirm it in writing before you commit. A second opinion on another lawyer's work is a separate service (€1,350); anything else your matter needs is quoted in writing before any work starts.

Who prepares your opinion

Your work is signed personally by Colin Carroll — a dual-qualified solicitor, admitted in both England and Ireland, who has lived and worked on the European continent for twenty-five years. Today he is the registered, insured lawyer with the Ordem dos Advogados (the Portuguese Bar) and the bars of Spain, Italy and France, under EU Directive 98/5/EC, with professional-indemnity insurance in each country of practice.

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