What protection if not married?

We have friends who have a second home in France. They are not married. Joan has never been married and has no children; John is divorced and has two adult children. 

If either dies they want the survivor to retain the house to use as they wish and without being forced to sell or buy out other claimants who may be eligible to a share under French inheritance law. How may this be achieved?

Where a couple are not married – and not in a civil partnership, there is no obvious solution under the usual French rules, says honorary avocat Gerard Barron. 

What is more, even if one could be found, the share in the property that one member of the couple leaves the other would be taxed at 60%, which could force a sale on the survivor anyway. 

He said: “Joan is free to leave her share to whoever she wants. As to John, theoretically his children could enter into a pacte successoral [a legal agreement via a notaire] in favour of Joan, but I don’t see why they would, nor that in the circumstances, a notaire would be happy to formalise any such arrangement.” 

The best solution may be to make use of the choice of law option under the EU inheritance regulation, by making wills in which they opt for (if they are British) UK law to apply to their estate, and in each case leaving their portion of the home to the other partner. 

This would apply if they were residents of France but as the French Justice Ministry has taken the view that the EU inheritance regulation can apply to people living in the UK as well, it will also work if they live there (see here). 

However, this would not resolve the problem of the high French inheritance tax (60%) that is payable where there is no formal relationship.