High fees on British assets normal under French law, says notaire

Paris notaires involved in a recent dispute say it is standard practice to charge fees based on a percentage of the entire estate’s value when declaring non-French assets in inheritance cases involving non-residents – even if the work involved is minimal and fees appear high.

The case concerns a UK resident who inherited property in both the UK and France from her husband, also a UK resident. 

As reported in June, she has been in dispute with the notaire who handled the French element of the succession.

At the heart of the disagreement are fees calculated on the value of the deceased’s worldwide estate, including UK assets. 

These assets were not subject to French tax, nor did they require legal work in France to transfer ownership or pass them on to beneficiaries.

The woman says she finds the bill for this unacceptable and is considering further steps. She has complained to the Paris notaires’ chamber, but claims it had “failed to address the specific points” in a response to her. 

Read more: Can renovation costs be deducted from French capital gains tax?

Overcharged by €15,000

She claims she was ‘overcharged’ by €15,000 partly related to a dispute over whether certain billable advice was given or not. 

However €8,200 of this was for fixed-tariff fees (known as émoluments) calculated against the value of the UK property using official percentage rates for a succession declaration.

The notaire in the case insisted to The Connexion this was correct practice under French law.

“We’ve got nothing to reproach ourselves for, it was perfectly usual and frequent,” he said.

“In principle, in a declaration of succession the worldwide estate should be declared. Notaires’ tariffs for this provide that émoluments are levied on the estate declared.”

In this precise case, he said, they did not in fact declare the UK part of the estate to France, as the client preferred that they did not do so. 

As the UK estate was not subject to French inheritance tax, there was little at stake (an ‘administrative’ non-declaration penalty of €150 would have been theoretically possible, he said).

Read more: Is there a way to ensure civil partner inherits French property?

Easy money?

“We told her that it was her decision and her right, but as it reduced our overall fees, we will nonetheless charge her the same amount as if the foreign assets had been declared.”

Asked if this is not “easy money” if there is a large foreign estate element subject to no work other than inclusion in a list, he said: “In fact, each time, this decision is taken in agreement with the client, based on the work that’s been done. 

“If we’re asked to deal with an estate with foreign property and we’ve got no work to do with regard to it, we won’t bill on that. In this case we spent a lot of time explaining everything and we considered the fees were proportionate.”

He said in simple situations they either advise the client not to declare the foreign assets (if there is no French tax) or if there is French tax, they ask an avocat to sign the declaration (their work is not subject to set percentage tariffs for this). 

Legally, it is also possible for an individual to make a French succession declaration themselves.

Read more: Can you cancel a joint loan in France following a separation from your partner?

European Court of Justice 

We note that a court case is currently underway in the European Court of Justice as to whether it was right for a French notaire to bill for a succession declaration based on worldwide assets of a person who died living in Belgium with French and Belgian property. 

The court’s advocate general has given a preliminary view that it is inappropriate for a notaire in one EU state to bill based on the worldwide assets taking no account of fees paid to a notaire in another state, where the deceased lived, based on the same assets and for equivalent work.