Disposable portion (quotité disponible)

The quotité disponible (disposable portion) is the part of their estate that a person may give or bequeath to whomever they wish, including to one of their children over and above that child’s share, to their spouse, to a third party or to a charity. The rest, the réserve (forced heirship share), must go to the protected heirs. The French Civil Code defines the disposable portion as the part of the assets and rights of the estate that is not reserved by law and of which the deceased was free to dispose by gift or will.

Its fraction depends on the number of children: half of the estate where there is one child, one third where there are two, one quarter where there are three or more. Where there are no descendants, the surviving spouse is a protected heir for one quarter, and the disposable portion is three quarters. Between spouses, a special disposable portion allows a person to give their spouse, at the spouse’s choice, either the ordinary portion, or one quarter in full ownership and three quarters in usufruct, or the whole in usufruct.

Where the rule comes from

Articles 912 and 913 of the French Civil Code define the forced heirship share and the disposable portion and set the fractions; article 914-1 deals with the surviving spouse where there are no descendants; article 1094-1 organises the special disposable portion between spouses. Article 922 specifies the mass to which those fractions apply: the assets existing at death, after deduction of debts, increased by the value of all gifts made by the deceased, according to their condition at the time of the gift and their value at the opening of the succession.

In a valuation report

The disposable portion is a fraction, but it applies to a mass expressed in euros, and that mass depends on property valuations: the buildings existing at death and the buildings given away during the deceased’s lifetime, the latter in their original condition. I value each of them at the date of death, with a separate report for each property where the dates or conditions differ. For the properties given away, I specify what has been set aside (later construction, renovation) and provide, where needed, the value of a usufruct or a bare ownership where the gift concerned a divided interest. The notaire (French civil-law notary) then calculates the portion and checks whether the gifts exceed it.

Example

A widow dies leaving three children, a house worth €280,000 and €40,000 in savings, with no debts. Fifteen years earlier she had given her youngest daughter a flat which, in its original condition, is worth €160,000 at the date of death. Calculation mass: 280,000 + 40,000 + 160,000 = €480,000. Forced heirship share for three children: three quarters, that is €360,000, or €120,000 each; disposable portion: €120,000. If the gift had been made outside the daughter’s inheritance share, it would exceed the disposable portion by €40,000 and would be subject to abatement in that amount.

Not to be confused with

The forced heirship share is the complement of the disposable portion. An heir’s share of the estate, in the absence of a will, is calculated on the divisible mass and not on the disposable portion. The tax-free allowance per child belongs to inheritance tax, not to civil law.