As we reported last month, the European Commission has reached an agreement with France concerning the application in France of the EU Succession Regulation, commonly known as ‘Brussels IV’.
The Regulation, adopted in 2012 and applicable since 2015, allows a person to choose in their will the succession law of their nationality, rather than the law of their country of habitual residence, to govern their estate. French inheritance taxes continue to apply, regardless of which national law governs the succession.
For many foreign nationals living in France, this has been an important estate-planning tool. Thus, for English nationals it can allow English law to apply to their succession, including its broader freedom to leave assets to a surviving spouse or partner, rather than the French system of réserve héréditaire, under which children are generally entitled to fixed shares.
However, in 2021 France passed a law providing that where the deceased or at least one of their children was, at the time of death, an EU citizen or resident, and where the foreign law governing the estate contained no mechanism protective of children's rights, the deceased's children should be informed of their right to claim a "compensatory levy" (prélèvement compensatoire) from any French-situated assets, up to the value of the share they would have received under French law.
France's updated position, as published last month by the Commission, is that the 2021 law was never intended to require foreign laws to contain protections identical to the French réserve héréditaire. Rather, any mechanism protective of children is sufficient to disapply the compensatory levy. France has identified English law's family provision rules as a "functional equivalent" of the French hereditary reserve.
Thus, under the UK Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, children left in financial difficulty may apply to an English court for a share of the estate after a parent's death. France has concluded this is sufficient to exempt English-law wills from the levy obligation.
Nevertheless, the problem is that there has been no change of law, and there is early evidence that notaires are reluctant to apply the agreement to estates.
We have been contacted by two readers, both stating that when they approached their notaire to create a will opting for the succession laws of the UK, the notaires refused to accept that this was possible. One reader stated “My wife and I want to make the usual English will, leaving everything to each other. Because we don't want my children by a previous marriage to have any claim, we went to a notaire to make wills governed by English Law. He read a French translation of your article. He said French forced heirship rules still apply to our case and my children might have a claim against part of my wife's assets.”
The central difficulty is that the Commission's pre-closure letter does not constitute a change in French law. Article 913(3) of the Code civil, as amended by the 2021 law, remains on the statute book. Its wording refers to a foreign law that “does not permit any protective mechanism for children”, without expressly naming English law or the 1975 Act.
No ministerial decree implementing the new interpretation has been issued and no formal instruction to notaires has been circulated through the official regulatory channels that would give notaires the legal cover to act on it.
This is not a minor administrative concern. Notaires in France are personally liable for errors in the conduct of successions. In the absence of a formal decree or official instruction confirming the new position, any notaire who simply decides not to contact disinherited children in an estate governed by English law runs the risk of being held liable if a child subsequently claims a compensatory levy that the notaire failed to mention.
The text of Article 913(3) requires an assessment of the protection offered by the foreign law, and the practical consequences may depend on the particular foreign legal system and the facts of the estate. Without guidance from the government, that is a major task for a notaire and the risk of a lack of uniform application of the agreement is therefore high.
The need for clarity was underlined by a significant judicial development in November 2025. The Cour d'appel de Versailles confirmed that a child with an EU connection could exercise the compensatory levy against assets in France even where the deceased had made a valid election of a foreign succession law under Brussels IV. The court upheld the claim and rejected the argument that the foreign law choice should prevail.
There also remains the question of retroactivity of the agreement. Estates opened between 2021 and 2024 that were handled on the assumption that English-law wills were subject to Article 913 may need to be revisited, and the courts will ultimately need to determine how to treat disputes already in progress.
It also remains unclear if other nationals will be able to benefit from the agreement. Professional commentary we have seen indicates that nationals of Scotland should be able to benefit, and there are also common law provisions in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, which should mean that nationals of these countries should obtain similar relief. In Ireland too, experts have stated there are provisions that enable children to claim against a parent’s estate, so they should also be able to use the agreement.
The position for Americans is considerably less clear as there are different laws that apply between the US States. According to experts, most contain no statutory family provision mechanism equivalent to the English model.
The question of whether French courts will accept that a discretionary remedy available only to children in financial difficulty (such as the 1975 Act in the UK), is truly equivalent to their entitlement in French law has yet to be tested judicially and may yet prove to be the most significant unresolved issue in the entire agreement.
Therefore, at least until there is further guidance from the government, notably by the publication of a a ministerial decree or circular, the implementation of the agreement remains in abeyance.
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