Dying Without a Will in France (Succession Sans Testament)

When a person dies in France without leaving a will, nothing about who inherits is left to chance or to family agreement. The Code civil steps in with a fixed order of succession, the dévolution légale (statutory succession), and it decides everything: which relatives inherit, in what rank, and in what proportion. Heirs cannot vote to change it, and a promise the deceased made in life carries no weight unless it was put into a valid will.

This matters far more than most people expect, because the statutory order produces results that surprise families every day. A long-term partner can receive nothing. A surviving spouse can be forced to share the estate with the deceased's parents. And a child from an earlier relationship can quietly change what the spouse is allowed to take. The rules below explain exactly how the estate is divided when there is no will.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

The four orders of heirs

The backbone of intestate succession is Article 734 of the Code civil. When there is no surviving spouse, it ranks blood relatives into four orders, and each order excludes every order beneath it.

• First order: the children of the deceased and their descendants.
• Second order: the father and mother, together with the brothers and sisters and their descendants.
• Third order: ascendants other than the father and mother, such as grandparents.
• Fourth order: collateral relatives other than siblings and their descendants, such as uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Each of these four categories is a full order that shuts out the ones below it. If the deceased leaves even one child, that first order inherits and the parents, grandparents, and cousins receive nothing. Only when an order is entirely empty does the next order inherit. Within an order, the estate is shared by the rules of degree and, where a nearer relative has died, by representation, so that grandchildren can step into the place of a deceased parent.

The surviving spouse sits outside the four orders

The four orders describe blood relatives. The surviving married spouse is governed by a separate set of rules in Articles 756 to 767, and the spouse's share changes depending on which relatives survive alongside them. This is where most competitor summaries go wrong, because the spouse's entitlement is not a single fraction.

When the deceased leaves children

Article 757 controls this case, and it splits into two very different outcomes.

If all of the deceased's children are also children of the surviving spouse, the spouse may choose between one quarter of the estate in full ownership (pleine propriété) and the usufruit of the entire estate. Choosing the usufruit typically lets the spouse continue to live in the family home and receive any income from the estate for life, while the children hold the bare ownership.

If there is even one child who is not also the spouse's child, that choice disappears. The spouse is limited to one quarter of the estate in full ownership, and the usufruit option is not available. A single child from an earlier relationship therefore materially reduces what the surviving spouse can take.

When the deceased leaves no children

If there are no descendants, Article 757-1 applies. If both of the deceased's parents are still alive, the surviving spouse receives one half of the estate, and each parent receives one quarter. If only one parent survives, that parent takes one quarter and the surviving spouse takes the remaining three quarters.

If there are no descendants and neither parent survives, Article 757-2 gives the entire estate to the surviving spouse, ahead of siblings, grandparents, and all more distant relatives, with one exception: under Article 757-3, where the deceased had received property from a parent by inheritance or gift and it is still in the estate in kind, half of that specific property reverts to the deceased's brothers and sisters or their descendants.

PACS partners and cohabitants inherit nothing

The word "spouse" in these rules means a married spouse and no one else. A partner bound by a PACS (pacte civil de solidarite) and an unmarried cohabiting partner (concubin) have no statutory inheritance rights at all under French law. When there is no will, the estate passes to blood relatives and, if the person was married, to the surviving spouse, and the surviving partner is simply left out.

This is the single most damaging assumption people make. A couple who lived together for decades but never married, or who entered a PACS believing it carried inheritance rights, can find that the survivor receives nothing while distant relatives inherit the home. The only fix is a will, and even then the deceased's children are protected by the reserved share described in the forced heirship rules.

The reserved share still applies

Dying without a will does not switch off the réserve héréditaire, the portion of the estate that French law guarantees to the deceased's children. Intestacy simply distributes the estate according to the statutory order; it does not expand anyone's freedom to disinherit. If the deceased had made lifetime gifts, those can be brought back into account when the shares are calculated. The interaction between the statutory shares, the reserved portion, and any gifts is set out in the inheritance overview and the forced heirship guide.

When no heir can be found

Occasionally an estate has no identifiable heir, or every potential heir has renounced it. The law handles this in stages.

The estate is first declared vacante, meaning no known successor has accepted it. It is then administered by the State's domain service, which secures and manages the assets. If, after the legal period, no heir comes forward, the estate becomes en déshérence and passes to the State under Article 539 of the Code civil.

The important detail, and one that many summaries miss, is that the State is not treated like an ordinary heir. Under Article 724, statutory heirs are seised of the estate automatically, but the State is not. It must apply for and obtain envoi en possession (a court grant of possession) from the tribunal judiciaire under Articles 811 and following before it genuinely owns the assets. Until the court makes that grant, the State only administers the estate; it does not own it.

How the estate is actually settled

In practice a notaire opens the succession, draws up the acte de notoriete that identifies the legal heirs, and applies the statutory shares set out above. Where the estate holds real property or reaches the relevant threshold, a notaire is required, and the cost of that work is explained in the guide to notaire fees. Where relatives own property together after the succession, the rules on jointly owned property govern how they can manage or sell it.

For the full context of French inheritance, including tax and testamentary options, see the wills and estates hub, the inheritance tax guide, and the rules on making a valid will.