UK expats living in France: have you made a French will?

[justwondering72]

Hello

We have been living in France for around 7 years now, DH, myself and 2 DSs. We don't own any property and our savings in France are negligible. We own property in the UK, as well as having some investments there. We don't have any great desire to buy here yet. We have a UK will, which is up to date but only deals with UK assets and makes no mention of living in France. It also states who we would want to look after our children, in the event of us both dying while they are young. My question is: do we need to make a French will to cover any of this? Up to this point, I assumed that if anything happened, it would be the UK will that was looked to as that's where all our other family live, it's where the boys would go, and it's where all our major assets are. But I may well be wrong. I'd welcome advice on this!

Not in France at the moment, over the border in Switzerland.

But when we did live in France we had our will done with a solicitors in the UK and had it checked by a Parisian based lawyers. Similar to you we had UK assets but no French assets really. DH's French company life insurance was the only concern.

As far as i am aware our French lawyer did nothing to it other than keep a copy. But our UK will was created whilst we already resident in France, not before we moved out there. Not sure whether that would have made a difference.

The will making process is about to get a whole lot less complicated as from August 2015, you can elect to have the law of your E.U country take precedence over French law. This applies to British home owners resident in France though not those with holiday homes.