Married to French woman but living in UK quesrion about inheritance in case of death.

[Boristhespie]

I got married to a french girl 10 odd years afo. We did this in France to placate her mom. We both live in Scotland, visiting familyin France for extended periods. (we are both teachers employed in Scotland)

Anyway my wife's father recently died and in the course of sorting things out the solicitor told her that should she die her savings, share of our house and belingings and insurances, including an employer based lump sum would all go to her brothers and sisters rather than me.

To be frank we had never thought about this assuming as is the case in Scotland that everything would go to spouse with the exception of anything directed by a will. Obviously I would need any payments to pay for house etc and I am not too enamoured with her brothers and sisters gaining anything.

So this has shocked us and is a worry.

Can anyone advise if this is correct and if the solicitor is correct or if the fact we live in Scotland means Scots law would have presidence?

Also if it is true how should we remedy it to ensure I would be adequately provisioned should the worst happen.

[parsnips]

Originally Posted by Boristhespie

I got married to a french girl 10 odd years afo. We did this in France to placate her mom. We both live in Scotland, visiting familyin France for extended periods. (we are both teachers employed in Scotland)

Anyway my wife's father recently died and in the course of sorting things out the solicitor told her that should she die her savings, share of our house and belingings and insurances, including an employer based lump sum would all go to her brothers and sisters rather than me.

To be frank we had never thought about this assuming as is the case in Scotland that everything would go to spouse with the exception of anything directed by a will. Obviously I would need any payments to pay for house etc and I am not too enamoured with her brothers and sisters gaining anything.

So this has shocked us and is a worry.

Can anyone advise if this is correct and if the solicitor is correct or if the fact we live in Scotland means Scots law would have presidence?

Also if it is true how should we remedy it to ensure I would be adequately provisioned should the worst happen.

Hi,
Check the marriage documentation to see under which french marriage regime you are.
In any case , the situation the notaire described could only arise if your wife made a will to that effect. In the absence of a will , you would inherit everything (if you don't have children) even in France .
If she inherited anything permanent (like a building ) from her father , it could be that he specified in his will that on her death it reverts to his succession, and so goes to his other heirs.
Check that she has not made a will in France, and if you are still worried , find a scottish lawyer with french legal knowledge to discuss.
I think you may have misunderstood the notaire.

[Boristhespie]

She was at notaire with her family for final signing of things yesterday. I don't wish to be involved in this aspect (nothing to do with me). Anyways she states that the notaire advised that she should write a will so this questions over ALL her finances be adressed. It may be he was touting for work.

However this meeting was in relation to her fathers estate which did include one eigth of the family house and finances. So it could be that this may have been what the notaire was refering to.

If her father stipulated anything she inherits reverting back to the other siblings on her death, then i assume that there is little i could do about that. Bit strange as this has a retrospective aspect. Not having dealt with wills etc I would have thought once left to someone, it was theirs and any succession wishes would be down to them not someone who is dead.

I'm not too interested in this part but was concerned that all my wife's posessions and income could go to her brothers/sisters and I could be left knackered.

[Bevdeforges]

The solicitor you spoke with is apparently not keeping up with changes in French inheritance law. (Yeah, well, it has changed so little over time many people just assume it NEVER changes.)

Normally, a person's estate passes according to the country in which they are resident at the date of their death. There is a standard exception for "real property" (i.e. land and buildings), which normally pass according to the inheritance laws of the country where the property is located.

A few people have come through here recently saying that as of July 1st there is a European directive which gives citizens of EU countries a choice between following the laws of the country where they are resident or those of their home country (as long as it's in the EU). I don't know the details on this, nor how it is going to be implemented in France. But it's not uncommon to find local notaires who haven't a clue about this sort of thing.

It might not be a bad idea for your wife to contact a Scottish solicitor with some knowledge of current French law to draw up a will making her intentions crystal clear. The property in France may still have to pass according to French law (though I'm not sure of that), but your property in Scotland should be subject to local law.
Cheers,
Bev

[Boristhespie]

NOTE: just been told the notaire said that we were married under "Seperations Biens". Now when we got married we were asked if we wanted a pre-nupt seperating each others posessions should we divorce so what was mine prior to the marriage would remain mine and vice versa. We did not want this but wanted our things to b shared. I am now wandering if this designation "posessions biens" has an impact on tgis and on any inherentance in course of death.

To think i got married in France to make my mother in law happy.

Does this complicate things?

[Bevdeforges]

You should have realized if you were getting married under a separation de biens - there's normally a notaire's fee involved to draw up the contract ahead of time. (Or perhaps your mother-in-law made those arrangements? Stranger things have happened.)

Still it does seem like the notaire your wife is dealing with is trying to drum up business for his- or herself. As long as you are both resident in the UK, you should fall under the local inheritance law - unless your wife has made arrangements to have her home country law apply.
Cheers,
Bev

[Boristhespie]

Thanks for your help.

At time of marriage I recall discussing the need for a prenupt which we decided against. We didn't have anything to guard against anyway (eg. Property or money). Prenupts are not recognised under Scots law anyway.

It a little worrying this notaire now tells us this re our marriage. Not sure how he knows exactly.

Does point to something if not misleading certainly needing further investigation. A bit of concern if married on a basis which we had rejected.

Would not put anything past French officialdom who had us jumping through hoops to be allowed to marry. (resident 1 month prior, all docs translated by UK embassy, searches to see if I was married, AIDs tests etc). As far as aware NO NOTAIRE was consulted by us or asked to draw anything up re our marriage.

Will be difficult to find Scots solicitor with french knowledge, lest of all one we probably could afford but there are enough uncertainties that we need to get thing straightened out.

[Bevdeforges]

You should have a livret de famille from your marriage in France. That would state on it whether you were married under a contract of any sort. And any contract would primarily apply only in France on French real property once you are resident elsewhere.

You may have an easier time finding a solicitor with a background in EU law as they'll need to know how Scottish law handles this sort of thing.
Cheers,
Bev

[-mia-]

If you didn't specify anything through a marriage contract then the default marriage regime in France would be the "mariage sans contract".

This stipulates that what you had before you were married belongs to whoever had it before you were married. So what's your is yours and what's hers is hers. This includes anything that is inherited. If you inherit from your family it belongs to you alone and anything she inherits belongs to her alone.

Anything you acquire during the marriage is both of yours.

So should you divorce, each of you takes with you what you brought into the marriage plus anything you inherited from your family, plus half of what you built together.

If one of you should die, the estate gets split into what you had coming into the marriage and what you inherited and then 1/2 of what you had together. This then is distributed to those that have rights to inherit. I can't imagine YOU have no rights to inherit from your wife.

Normally, the surviving spouse would get 1/2 of the surviving spouses estate and then the children/siblings/parents (or whoever) splits the other half.

Mariage sans contract:
Mariage sans contrat : régime de la communauté réduite aux acquêts - Service-public.fr

This is of course the basics without adding complications of living abroad, with/without a will, without the new EU directive, without any possible stipulations from your father in law. You'll need legal help getting a will together and working through all this legal-not-so-easy!

[Bevdeforges]

Originally Posted by -mia-

If one of you should die, the estate gets split into what you had coming into the marriage and what you inherited and then 1/2 of what you had together. This then is distributed to those that have rights to inherit. I can't imagine YOU have no rights to inherit from your wife.

Normally, the surviving spouse would get 1/2 of the surviving spouses estate and then the children/siblings/parents (or whoever) splits the other half.

Not quite. Up until a few years ago, spouses indeed had NO right to inherit from each other. (The notaires LOVED posting this little fact in their waiting rooms in order to drum up business.)

On the death of a spouse, the surviving spouse now may inherit - but how much depends on how many children the decedent had (in the current marriage or outside of it - prior marriages or not).

But being resident outside of France changes the situation by quite a bit. This is an old EU FAQ sheet on "international successions" which might shed some light on all this: EUROPA - Press Releases - Simplification of regulation on international successions

There has been some recent change to the law in France, but poking around a bit on the Europa website might yield a bit more information.
Cheers,
Bev