Letters: A tontine clause may ease inheritance fears in France
Connexion reader suggests a way of avoiding complications over the transfer of an estate
People should get individual advice with regards to marriage regimes and inheritance
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To the Editor,
A word of caution in respect of a couple of the responses about inheritance tax from readers.
Selling up and buying a property in the UK is indeed one solution to remove your estate from this ridiculous conundrum.
However, if you are going to do that you might just as well purchase a new property in France with a tontine clause in the contract which, in the event of the death of one partner, passes the entire estate to the other as if the former had never existed.
This means that the surviving partner can sell up and relocate as they wish without interference.
However, in order to incorporate a tontine clause in a purchase contract, your marriage regime needs to be Séparation de biens.
This is the standard regime applied to new French residents arriving from the UK, but it only stands for 10 years from the date of their formal entry into residence.
After that, the regime changes to a different type that, while it might have its own benefits, absolutely precludes the use of tontine.
If you are close to that 10-year point, it is easy for a notaire to draw up an act in which you elect to keep your existing marriage regime, leaving you free to sell up and relocate within France with a joint ownership contract that avoids the current inequity.
Paul Turner, Hautes-Pyrénées
Read more: Should my stepchildren have inherited more under French inheritance rules?
Editor’s note: Thank you for your suggestion of selling and buying again inserting a tontine clause, which may help some of those affected.
With regard to this or the matter of marriage regimes (which can indeed change automatically under certain conditions), we would advise that anyone affected consult a notaire about their personal situation and the consequences of the different options.
