France faces EU scrutiny over inheritance law – decisions expected this month

News is awaited this month of France’s response to EU demands that it consider “solutions” to the “problem” of its 2021 inheritance law.

It comes as a court ruling is also awaited that should shed more light on this issue.

Many French lawyers believe that a 2021 law on inheritance breaks EU regulation rules, allowing people to choose in a will the law of their nationality to apply to their whole estate.

The law seeks to impose French-law children’s obligatory portions even where a foreign (eg. English or a US state’s) law is meant to apply to a person’s estate. 

The law applies where the deceased or at least one of their children lived in France or the EU at the time of death and/or was an EU citizen and where a foreign system without fixed heir’s portions is set to apply.

It tells notaires to contact any bloodline children and offer them the chance to claim ‘compensation’. 

This may be calculated according to French reserved heirship portions which are from half (for a single child) to three-quarters (for three or more) of the estate. 

‘Compensation’ could only be taken from French-situated property but the amount may be calculated against the worldwide estate of French residents. 

France in 'possible violation' of EU inheritance rules

Avocat Simon Deceuninck of Citizen Avocats in Bordeaux agreed it is likely that the European Commission will open a formal infringement procedure against France – stating that it has broken EU law – if it has failed to take seriously certain unnamed “solutions” it proposed this summer to “remedy the problem”.

The commission has already referred to a “possible violation by France of EU inheritance rules”, in communications. 

Should it confirm this, it would put pressure on France to rectify the law.

Mr Deceuninck previously told The Connexion lawyers are unanimous in condemning the law, which he said was adopted during the pandemic, when parliamentary time was shortened and public scrutiny of the process was less intensive than usual.

He said last year he hoped King Charles’s visit and generally improved UK-France relations might help, especially as the MPs’ original target with the law was not Britons or Americans but rather concerns over discrimination against women in the case of a choice of Sharia.

In reality, those choosing ‘Anglo-Saxon’ common law systems have been the most affected, a result which was predicted by the French Senate at the time the law was passed.

Ironically, many lawyers believe the 2021 law might not even work in the case of Sharia law, as this says daughters should inherit a portion – but only half that of sons.

Mr Deceuninck has been in court representing an Irish-British widow living in France whose British civil partner died leaving an art collection (he had left everything to her, under English law).

“It’s a typical case where the law resulted in an unfair situation,” he said. 

“The surviving children are quite well off whereas the surviving widow really needs this estate.

“The children have summonsed us to court to demand a valuation of the estate in view of a future compensatory levy. My defence will be that this should not be done.”

Towards a ruling in the European Court of Justice

In September Mr Deceuninck asked the juge des référés (a judge able to give a quick, provisional decision) to refuse.

“My case was pleaded in Carcassonne,” he said. “A solution will be rendered early October. 

“If, as I asked, the request is refused, it will mean a serious risk of incompatibility [of the 2021 law and EU law] is confirmed,” he said.

He thinks the deceased’s children will then seek to go before the “main court”, where the underlying issues will be examined. 

He believes it will then ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule on the question of legal incompatibility. 

Note that, in law, EU and other international laws take precedence over national French law.

He added: “The solution to the problem of the law, in my view, will come from a binding precedent of the ECJ – in other words, from bringing individual claims to court.”

The Connexion has been covering the issue since the law was passed in summer 2021. 

Many readers have told of their worries that their future wishes will not be respected, and some have already faced claims, potentially leaving them in financial difficulty.

At least 150 couples supported a campaign launched by readers Ronnie Bennett and Trish Miller, known as My Will My Way.