A man lost his wife in early 2025. They had a home in France, their retirement plan. He was grieving. Instead of space to process his loss, he found himself in a legal stalemate, blocked by one of his late wife’s two daughters. The French probate process ground to a halt. Over a year later, nothing has moved. The asset is frozen. The family is fractured. I have sat with families through this exact kind of breakdown.
The Point of Failure
The couple had done what they thought was right. Back in 2016, they had wills drawn up by a French notaire, electing for the law of England and Wales to apply. This is a standard procedure for UK nationals, designed to bypass French forced heirship rules. But in 2021, a new French law created ambiguity around these elections. When the wife died, this legal grey area became a weapon.
The non-compliant daughter simply refused to answer the notaire's correspondence. With no time limit for a response, her silence was enough to paralyse the entire process. The system itself allowed a family dispute to derail a technically correct, if outdated, legal instruction. The local official’s clerk offered no solution, simply stating that the 2021 law would likely apply. The plan failed.
The Cross-Border Imperative
This is not just a story about France. It is a lesson for any UK family with assets abroad. Your UK will might be perfect, but it can be undermined by jurisdictional conflicts. Relying on a legal election made nearly a decade ago, without reviewing it against changes in foreign law, is a critical vulnerability. This man's situation might have been mitigated with a review around 2022, after the French law changed.
The most important planning is not always technical. It is human. Just as you must appoint attorneys for a Lasting Power of Attorney who you know will cooperate, your estate plan must account for family dynamics. An unresolved conflict between siblings can be weaponised during probate. The time to stress-test these arrangements and have the difficult conversations is now, not after a death.
If any part of this story feels familiar, we should talk.
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Written by Sean Kiani, Estate Planner at Inheritance Made Simple. Sean writes and reviews the firm's guidance on estate planning, wills, trusts and inheritance tax, and works with families across Bournemouth, Poole, Dorset and Central London. Verify Sean's Society of Will Writers membership listing.