Inheriting French Property From Abroad: What the Notaire Really Charges in 2026

This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice. Rules change and individual situations differ. Always confirm the current position with a qualified professional before acting.

Your mother dies in Surrey. Among her papers is the flat in Nice she bought in 2009, and within a fortnight a notaire you have never met sends a devis with eleven lines on it, in French, for a little over €4,000, before a cent of inheritance tax. Nobody tells you which of those lines are fixed by law, which are guesses, which you could have avoided and which one, if you have a brother, could triple the bill. This guide does.

The French finance ministry published a short note on notaire fees in a succession on 6 October 2026. The tariff it reproduces is correct and we have checked every line against the code de commerce. What the note does not do is tell you what the figures add up to for a real estate, what happens when the deceased lived outside France, or where the money actually goes. We take the same table, run it on a €300,000 flat, and then show the two places where the cost is decided by a choice you make, not by the tariff.

When you cannot avoid the notaire

French law does not require a notaire for every estate. It requires one in four situations, and a foreign owner’s estate almost always meets the first: there is a property in France. The title to that property cannot pass to the heirs without an attestation de propriété immobilière (also called attestation notariée), a notarial deed recorded at the land registry, and only a notaire can draw it up. The other three triggers are a will, a donation entre époux (the gift between spouses that enlarges the survivor’s share), and an estate of €5,965 or more, the figure above which the heirs need an acte de notoriété to prove who they are.

That last number looks arbitrary and is worth decoding, because it explains what the acte de notoriété is for. It comes from the banking code (article L. 312-1-4 of the code monétaire et financier), which lets a bank close a deceased customer’s accounts and pay out the balance to a child or parent up to a ceiling, on a certificate the heirs sign themselves. Above the ceiling the bank wants a notaire’s deed naming the heirs. So the acte de notoriété is, in practice, the document that unlocks the bank account, the life policy and the sale of the car, and a UK grant of probate does not replace it. The flat makes the notaire compulsory anyway, but the acte de notoriété is the first thing he will produce, and the cheapest.

“Frais de notaire” is three bills in one envelope

The devis mixes money that goes to the notaire with money that goes through him. Readers of our piece on frais de notaire when buying will recognise the structure. The first bill is the émoluments, the notaire’s own fee for the regulated acts, fixed by a national tariff so that every notaire in metropolitan France charges the same to the cent. The second is the débours, sums he advances on your behalf: land registry extracts, cadastral documents, copies, the fee of the commissaire-priseur if an inventory is taken. The third is droits et taxes, money he collects for the State: VAT at 20 per cent on his own fee, the land registry’s contribution de sécurité immobilière, and the inheritance tax itself if he is handling the return.

There can be a fourth line. Advice that is not a regulated act, which in a cross-border estate means the analysis of which country’s law applies, the reading of an English will, or correspondence with a UK solicitor, is billed as honoraires, a free fee you agree in advance. A good notaire will quote it separately and tell you so. If a devis shows a round sum labelled honoraires or “frais de dossier” with no explanation, ask what act it attaches to. The official position is that you are entitled to a written, itemised estimate before any work starts, and to an itemised account at the end.

The tariff, line by line, and what each act is for

The rates below have applied since 1 January 2021. An arrêté of 25 February 2026 left them unchanged and extended them to 29 February 2028 (code de commerce, articles A. 444-53 and following), so a devis you receive this year or next should show exactly these figures. All are before VAT at 20 per cent. Proportional fees are calculated by slice, like income tax: the first €6,500 at the first rate, the next slice at the second, and so on. The overseas departments have higher rates and are not covered here.

Two details in the tariff text matter more than they look. The fee for the déclaration de succession is calculated on the gross estate, before debts, so a flat with a mortgage still on it is charged at its full value. And if the deceased was married under a French community regime, article A. 444-63 calculates the fee on the whole community, not the deceased’s half. Couples who married in England without a contract are generally treated as having no community, so this rarely bites a British family, but it does bite a mixed couple who signed a French marriage contract.

Worked example: a €300,000 flat, one heir in England

Take the flat in Nice, valued at €300,000, a French bank account holding €20,000, no debts, no will, one child. The deceased lived in England, so French inheritance tax reaches only the French assets (article 750 ter of the code général des impôts) and the French return covers a gross estate of €320,000. The notaire needs three acts.

To that add the land registry’s contribution de sécurité immobilière on the attestation, 0.10 per cent of the property’s value under article 881 K, so €300, and the débours, which for an estate of this shape typically run to a few hundred euros for registry extracts, cadastral documents and copies. The realistic envelope is €4,500 to €5,000, and the devis at the top of this article was right. None of it is inheritance tax: a child’s French tax bill on €320,000 is a separate calculation, with its own allowance, covered in our inheritance guide.

One thing the ministry’s note omits: the notaire may give a discount. Article A. 444-174 allows a remise of up to 20 per cent on the part of a proportional fee calculated on slices of €100,000 and above. On our example that is up to €212.80 off the attestation and €187.44 off the déclaration, €400 in all. The catch is in the law that created it: the discount must be offered to every client in the same situation, so an office either has a published discount policy or it does not. It costs nothing to ask the question before you instruct.

The line that triples the bill: partage

Now give the deceased two children. The acte de notoriété, the attestation and the déclaration cost the same: the tariff does not care how many heirs there are. What changes is that the two of you now own the flat and the account jointly, in indivision, each with an undivided half. Ending that joint ownership by a formal deed is a partage, and it is the most expensive act in the succession tariff. On €320,000 the fee is €3,690.58 before VAT (€4,428.70 with it). Worse, a partage is a taxable event in its own right: article 746 of the code général des impôts charges a droit de partage of 2.5 per cent on the net assets divided, €8,000 here. The two together add about €12,400 to a €4,000 bill.

The point most heirs are never told is that a partage is not compulsory. Indivision is a legal state you can stay in for as long as you agree, and the two situations most foreign heirs find themselves in do not need the deed at all. If you intend to sell the flat, sell it from the indivision: both heirs sign the sale, the notaire splits the proceeds in the sale deed, and the cash is divided without a partage and without the 2.5 per cent.

If you intend to keep it and let it, you can stay in indivision, agree in writing how the rent and the taxe foncière are shared, and divide nothing. The partage is only needed when one of you wants the flat and the other wants out, and even then the cost should be weighed against the alternative of a sale on the open market.

One trap inside the trap: if one heir buys the other’s half, that is not a sale for tax purposes. A buy-out between co-heirs (a licitation) is treated as a partage by article 750 II and pays the 2.5 per cent on the value of the share, not the ordinary transfer tax. A notaire will tell you this. A UK solicitor arranging the deal from London may not.

What changes when the deceased lived abroad

Four things. First, time. The déclaration de succession is due six months after a death in metropolitan France and twelve months after a death anywhere else (article 641). A death in Surrey gives you a year. Late filing costs interest at 0.20 per cent a month and a 10 per cent surcharge from the thirteenth month, counted from the death, whichever deadline applied (official guidance). The year goes faster than it sounds, because the notaire cannot value the estate until he has the death certificate, proof of who the heirs are and a view on which law governs the estate, and a UK death certificate needs an apostille and a sworn translation before a French office will act on it.

Second, the tax office. The return for a deceased who lived outside France goes to the Service des impôts des particuliers non-résidents at Noisy-le-Grand, not to the office nearest the flat. The notaire knows this. If you file yourself, which the law allows, it is the address on the form that matters.

Third, the base. French inheritance tax on a non-resident’s estate reaches the assets in France, not the house in Surrey or the ISA, so the déclaration covers the French assets and the notaire’s proportional fee is calculated on that smaller figure. The exception is an heir who has been tax resident in France for at least six of the ten years before the death, who is taxed on everything he receives, wherever it is. The 1963 UK-France treaty on estates then decides who taxes what, and in the common case of a French flat it is France.

Fourth, the law that governs who inherits. Under the 2012 EU succession regulation a French notaire asks where the deceased habitually lived, and the answer for our Surrey mother is England. English law in turn hands a French flat back to French law, and the regulation accepts the handover, so without a will choosing English law the flat passes under the French rules on reserved shares. That is a question of who gets what rather than of fees, and our inheritance guide covers the election and its limits. Its effect on the bill is that the analysis takes the notaire time, and that time is the honoraires line discussed above.

Five decisions that change the number

• Skip the partage if you can. Sell from indivision or stay in it. On a €320,000 estate with two heirs that is roughly €12,400 saved, most of it tax rather than fee.
• Ask for the remise before instructing. Up to 20 per cent on the slices above €100,000, worth about €400 on our example and more on a Paris flat. The notaire can only say yes if his office gives it to everyone, so the answer tells you something about the office.
• Think about an inventory when the contents are modest. Without one, article 764 values the furniture at a flat 5 per cent of the rest of the estate for inheritance tax, €16,000 on our flat, and that figure also enters the gross estate on which the déclaration fee is charged. An inventaire costs €75.46 plus the commissaire-priseur, and makes sense when the real contents are worth far less than 5 per cent. It is the one act on the tariff that can lower a tax bill.
• Do not double up on notaires. Heirs may each appoint their own and often do when they live in different countries. The regulated fee is a single fee per act, shared between the offices under the profession’s rules rather than charged twice, so a second notaire should not add to the émoluments. It can still slow everything down, and any honoraires are another matter.
• Decide who files the tax return. The déclaration can be filed by the heirs themselves on forms 2705 and 2705-S, and the 0.426 per cent fee is for the notaire’s work preparing it. In an estate with a property, a foreign domicile and a treaty question, paying him to do it is usually money well spent, but it is a choice, and you remain responsible to the tax office either way.

Doing it from England without flying

You can choose any notaire in France. The one who handled the purchase holds the file and is the obvious choice, but there is no rule that he must be near the property, and one who deals with British estates regularly will save you the honoraires of explaining England to him.

You do not need to attend. A procuration (power of attorney) lets someone in the notaire’s office sign in your place wherever an heir’s signature is needed, and since 2020 a notarial procuration can be signed remotely by video with a French notaire, or on paper before a UK notary public with an apostille added. The déclaration de succession is signed by the heirs or their representative and the tax is paid on filing, usually from the French bank account the acte de notoriété has just unlocked, so you rarely need to send money from the UK to pay it.

What the notaire will ask you for, in roughly this order: the death certificate with apostille and translation, the livret de famille if there was one or UK birth and marriage certificates for the heirs, the title deed to the flat, the last taxe foncière bill, the copropriété statements, bank statements at the date of death, any will and, if there is one, the UK grant of probate, which does not bind him but tells him what the English side has decided. He will also search the fichier central des dispositions de dernières volontés, the national register of wills, whether or not you think there is one.

Our view: the tariff is the small print, the choices are the bill

We think the ministry’s note is accurate and almost useless on its own, because it presents the succession tariff as if it were a price list when it is closer to a menu. Three of the seven acts on it are unavoidable when there is a French property, and on a €300,000 flat they come to around 1.1 per cent of its value before VAT, which is modest by the standards of English probate solicitors. Everything above that is the result of a decision: to divide the estate formally, to take an inventory or not, to let the notaire prepare the return, to appoint two notaires. The partage alone, with its 2.5 per cent tax, costs more than the three compulsory acts put together, and it is the one most heirs sign because it was put in front of them.

We would add that the real cost of a cross-border estate is rarely on the devis at all. It is the year that passes while an apostille is obtained, a translation is sworn and two sets of lawyers in two countries decide which law applies, with the taxe foncière and the copropriété charges still falling due and a flat standing empty. An owner can take most of that year out of the equation now, by keeping the title deed, the last avis and a note of which notaire holds the file where the heirs will find them, and by making the choice of law in a will rather than leaving it to be argued over. The tariff is public and fixed. The delay is the part you control.

Readers, have you inherited a French property from the UK, and did the notaire’s final account match the devis? Were you offered a partage, and did anyone explain the 2.5 per cent before you signed it? If you have been through the apostille and translation stage, how long did it take from the death to the attestation being registered?

FAQ: notaire fees in a French succession

How much does a notaire charge to settle a French succession with a property?

For an estate made up of a French property and a bank account, with one heir and no formal division, the notaire’s regulated fee is roughly 1.1 per cent of the property’s value before VAT: €56.60 for the acte de notoriété, about 0.53 per cent for the attestation transferring title and about 0.43 per cent for preparing the tax return. On a €300,000 flat that is about €3,300 before VAT, €4,000 with it, plus the 0.10 per cent land registry charge and a few hundred euros of disbursements.

Is a notaire compulsory for a French inheritance?

Yes if the estate includes a property in France, if there is a will, if there is a donation entre époux, or if the estate is worth €5,965 or more. A property makes the notaire compulsory because only a notaire can draw up the attestation immobilière that transfers title at the land registry.

What is the droit de partage and can I avoid it?

It is a 2.5 per cent tax on the net assets divided when heirs end their joint ownership by a formal deed of partage. It is avoided by not signing one: heirs can sell the property from indivision and split the proceeds in the sale deed, or remain in indivision. A buy-out of one heir by another is treated as a partage and pays the 2.5 per cent.

What is the deadline for the French inheritance tax return when the person died in the UK?

Twelve months from the death, against six months for a death in metropolitan France. The return goes to the Service des impôts des particuliers non-résidents. Late filing attracts interest at 0.20 per cent a month and a 10 per cent surcharge from the thirteenth month after the death.

Can the notaire give a discount on succession fees?

Yes, up to 20 per cent on the part of a proportional fee calculated on slices of the value at or above €100,000, under article A. 444-174 of the code de commerce. The discount must be applied to all clients in the same situation, so it depends on the office’s policy rather than on negotiation.