Passing on the Heritage

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In France, the Napoléonic Code, set in place by Napoléon Bonaparte, is the basis for the nation’s legal system. It lays down strict and hitherto virtually inflexible rules about who inherits what.   It is totally different from the Anglo-Saxon legal system. In the United States or Britain, for instance, you can, in a will, leave your worldly goods to whom or what you wish and in the proportions you wish. They can be given to one or more of your children or to friends or institutions–or to the cat if the mood strikes you.   Not so in France where the criterion for inheritance essentially is blood line. Children come first, then their children and their children’s children. Share and share alike. Failing children, the line goes back upward to still-living parents and then grandparents. Failing that it branches out to brothers and sisters and then nieces and nephews.   Widows and widowers fare nowhere near as well. In general, they get a fourth, not more of a spouse’s estate. If the required legal formalities are followed, they probably can get continued use–not ownership–of the family home and belongings until they themselves pass away. Then, however, everything reverts to the blood line, the children, etc.   The system has a logic but, as the anecdote illustrates, it bears the seeds of constant family disputes about how to divide a heritage.  If a set of parents with numbers of children die, the children inherit in equal proportions in an arrangement that is called an "indivision."  In effect it is a situation without agreement yet on how things should be divided.   Until they unanimously reach that agreement under the time-honored "indivision" system, any one of the inheritors could block distribution of the family property, finances and heirlooms. The negotiations could–and often did and still do– go on for years.   Americans living in France as well as those related by blood or marriage to French citizens have learned to pay close attention to the Napoléonic Code because it could affect them, just as it does French citizens, if they die in France or find themselves in a French heritage situation.   But time and social customs march on, even in France.  Precisely because the rigidity of the French system was proving ever more archaic in a constantly changing society, France is putting into effect a major reform effort aimed at loosening things up.   The give-it-all-to-the-cat scenario is still out. That remains a bit too much for France.  But regulations for passing on a heritage will be considerably eased. The aim is to speed up resolution of indivisions and take into account two new societal phenomena.    The first is the fact that people are living longer and their children already are often grown and established and not in need of an inheritance.  The second is the increasing number of reconstructed or non-traditional families with children stemming from multiple marriages or out-of-wedlock.   To deal with the first problem, the new rules will make it newly possible for someone whose parents pass away to renounce a heritage in favor of his or her own children or even a spouse’s children from a previous marriage   If they don’t want or need the inheritance concerned, they will be able, for the first time, to pass their heritage rights directly to the next generation down. That will help them avoid being taxed twice on essentially the same sums or properties–once when they inherit themselves, and again when they pass them on to their own children.   Alternatively, the renunciation could be in favor of a brother or sister, perhaps one who is handicapped or otherwise, needier than his or her siblings. All the original inheritors will have to agree but, even then, the law will be more supple than hitherto.   To deal with the reconstructed family issues, certain qualified heritage rights will be accorded, again for the first time, to families and children from second marriages   Finally but perhaps most important, the new regulations will help, in some cases, to shorten the often years-long delay before siblings or other inheritors agree on how things should be divided. The family, however close before the parents pass away, still may squabble endlessly about who gets mom’s tea service or grandpa’s portrait or more likely, about the disposition of the family house.   But one thing will be speeded up. The new laws will impose a four-month limit for an inheritor to make or not make a decision to renounce his or her part of a heritage.   The time limit used to be 30 years and sometimes it was fully used as a delaying tool by children who didn’t want to accept their inheritance rights because they could entail responsibility for debts of their parents that they didn’t want to or couldn’t assume. In the meantime, however, they blocked the inheritance process for their co-inheritors.   Many months may be required before the new law runs the gauntlet of parliamentary fine-tuning and transformation into standard procedures and decrees. But for French families locked into or fearing divisive heritage battles, a breath of fresh air is in sight.   In the not too distant future it may be possible to see a friendly, compatible and obviously happy group of French brothers and sisters and their spouses at a table — even if they have been through the inheritance process.   
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