Notaires fees

Certain fees are payable to the notaire for dealing with your estate after you die if you are a French resident or leave French real estate. 

These fees are at set, regulated rates for the various common procedures that must be carried out, and many of them vary depending on the value of the estate.

You can visit this site to estimate the costs, or see our inheritance guide for a fuller treatment of this. 

These are payable out of the estate before distribution and may be at fixed amounts or at amounts that vary depending on the value of the estate being dealt with. 

This site has free tools to help estimate fees and decide on legal heirs and a way to find a notaire directly.

Note that when a notaire starts work on a particular inheritance dossier they will usually ask for a sum of money called une provision to be held on account to pay the various taxes and fees involved in sorting out the formalities.

Once everything has been completed the notaire should provide a relevé de compte, detailing what the money has been spent on. There may be a surplus to be repaid.

Items paid for among the notaires fees include, for example:

• the drawing of an acte de notoriété identifying who the heirs are
• making an inventory of the estate
• drawing up certificats de propriété to certificate the transfer of moveable property to an heir (shares, money from accounts etc) and attestations de propriété to formalise transfer of real estate
• a declaration of the inheritance for tax purposes (déclaration de succession)
•  fees for the share-out (partage) or the estate.