Understand France's inheritance tax rules and nue-propriété

Answer: This scenario relates to a situation where one person owns a lifetime right to use a property (usufruit) and another person has the residual ownership of the legal title.

It is sometimes used, for example, where parents give the nue-propriété to their children, thus reducing the tax the children have to pay because they do not get use of it immediately.

The nue-propriété right has a certain monetary value in itself, so it would form part of the estate of the person who has died and would be potentially taxable, but bearing in mind French

inheritance tax allowances which vary depending on the relationship between the deceased and the person inheriting this right.

Inheritance tax would be payable on the value of this right, by the person or people designated to inherit it in the deceased’s will (or any close family inheriting according to French

intestacy rules, if there was no will).