Understanding inheritance and debt liability in France
In France, heirs may inherit debts along with assets, and they must decide within four months whether to accept or refuse the inheritance.
Options include accepting the inheritance with full liability, accepting only up to the net value of the estate, or renouncing it entirely to avoid debt responsibility.
When heirs cannot be found...
The acte de notoriété, setting out who will inherit, can only be drawn up once the notaire has run checks, which should go beyond just asking the closest known relatives.
If in doubt as to who all the heirs are or how to contact them a généalogiste successoral may be appointed. If they find an heir they will ask them to sign a contract giving up part of the inheritance to cover fees, often around a third, though courts can reduce this if deemed excessive for the work done.
Heirs can inherit debts!
Certain fees are payable to the notaire for dealing with your estate. See the table below for some of the main notaire's fees relating to inheritance or visit this site to estimate the costs:
Relatives inheriting a share of the estate are héritiers (heirs); a narrower term than légataire, meaning legatee, someone receiving a bequest.
People who are legatees for named gifts only are called légataires particuliers and are not responsible for the debts of the estate, whereas heirs are, in proportion to their share in the estate (légataires universels – named as inheriting the rest of the estate after any heir's portions – are also responsible proportionally for debts).
An heir/legatee should usually decide to accept or refuse their inheritance within four months.
There are options if you do not want to accept liability to pay debts:
Accept simply or accept for the net value
In the first case heirs are liable to pay off the deceased’s debts (apart from any which expired on death); the second limits liability to the value of property the heir stands to inherit.
The latter is done with a declaration at the tribunal de grande instance court or to the notaire, who will pass it to the court.
Légataires particuliers may have to pay debts in cases where a gift comes on condition of related debts being paid. It is advisable to take legal advice about the options available:
Refuse it
This has the same effect as if the person had never inherited.
This is done at the greffe (office) of the tribunal de grande instance of the place where the deceased died.
The inheritance passes to their children or grandchildren (who may renounce it in turn). If children are minors a judge will be involved in deciding their best interests.
This might be done because of debts but could be done so as to benefit others.
If no one accepts, the goods are sold off to pay creditors and family may keep personal souvenirs.
Renounce in advance of the death
It is also possible for a reserved heir to renounce an inheritance in advance of their relative dying in a legal document signed in front of two notaires.
Notaires' fees
Notaires' fees are regulated for a number of common procedures.
They may be at fixed amounts or at amounts that vary depending on the value of the estate being dealt with. Below are some of the main fees concerned with inheritance.
They are correct as of publishing this guide but may be subject to future adjustments. The site monnotaire-masuccession.notaires.fr 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 paid to be held on account to be used for paying 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.
