French forced inheritance rule raises questions about English law

Is it cheeky, silly or just anti-EU of France to perform near- Machiavellian twists to insist on applying its rules about children being, in some cases, greater beneficiaries to a father’s estate than their widowed mother?

I refer to new legislation which will apply forced heirship rules on French assets, even where a foreign resident has elected the law of their country of nationality to apply.

Read more: Families face stress over new French inheritance law and foreign wills

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An interesting feature of the new law is that it seems to apply where the country a foreign testator has elected has no provision for forced inheritance to children.

As a retired Briton legally and happily resident in France, may I introduce the English Intestate Estates Act, which does (or did, to my last concern) contain clear provision for the sharing of the intestate’s assets among the family, right down to stated proportions.

Therefore, would England count as a country with legal provision for forced inheritance?

Editor’s note: Many countries have laws on who inherits in the case of intestacy, ie. when no will has been made - however this does not trigger an exemption from the French law.

That only applies where there is an obligation for people to give a part of their estate to their children. Questions have been asked about whether Scottish law may benefit, as it has such an obligation but relating to moveable property only and only where the deceased died resident in Scotland. To our knowledge there has been no official ruling on this.

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