A man dies in 2006 leaving a widow, three children and two grandchildren, and a will bequeathing the disposable portion (quotité disponible, the share of the estate a person may freely give away beyond the children’s reserved portion) to one of his daughters. Eleven years later, a property that belonged to him separately is sold for 451,000 euros, paid to the notary. To compute the disposable portion, should that price be used, or the value of the property at the date of death? The Versailles court of appeal takes the sale price: article 922 of the Civil Code, it says, cannot be “mixed”, and for an asset that has been sold, the sale value counts. On 2 July 2025 the Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil matters), in a reported decision, quashed: the sale rule applies to assets given away and then sold by the donee; an asset that was in the deceased’s estate at death enters the pool at its value at the opening of the succession, whatever happened to it afterwards. The valuer gets back a classic assignment, retrospective valuation, and a useful rule: a price obtained later is a clue, not the answer.
The facts
The deceased dies on 6 April 2006, leaving his wife, married under the community regime and herself deceased in 2016, three children, one of whom, a son, died in 2019, and two grandchildren representing a predeceased son. A holograph will of 22 September 2005 bequeaths the disposable portion to one of the daughters. The settlement of the estate becomes difficult, and a property belonging separately to the deceased is sold on 11 December 2017 for 451,000 euros, paid to the notary in charge of the estate.
The first-instance court had set at 212,380 euros an indirect advantage received by the legatee, to be brought back to the estate, and dismissed her request to include 451,000 euros in the assets. The Versailles court of appeal, on 30 May 2023, reverses: the disposable portion, against which that advantage is charged, will be computed by including in the estate’s assets the sum of 451,000 euros, the sale value of the property, because the second sentence of the second paragraph of article 922 provides that, where assets have been sold, only their sale value may be taken into account. Another daughter appealed.
The decision
The first civil chamber quashed, under article 922 of the Civil Code in its version prior to the law of 23 June 2006, applicable to a succession opened in April 2006 (Cass. 1re civ., 2 July 2025, no. 23-18.877, reported). The provision forms “a pool of all the assets existing at the death of the donor or testator”, to which are notionally added the assets given away “according to their condition at the time of the gift and their value at the opening of the succession”, and specifies: “If the assets have been sold, account is taken of their value at the time of the sale and, where there has been subrogation, of the value of the new assets at the date of the opening of the succession.”
“It follows that notionally reunited assets still found at death in the donee’s estate are valued like existing assets, at the date of death, in their condition at the date of the gift.” By including in the assets the sale value of 451,000 euros of a property that existed at death and was sold only afterwards, the court of appeal breached the provision. The case is sent back to the Versailles court of appeal, differently composed.
What this changes for valuation
Two categories of assets, one date. The calculation pool of article 922 brings together the assets existing at death and the assets the deceased gave away during his lifetime. The former are valued at the date of death. So are the latter, in their condition at the date of the gift, unless the donee sold them before the death: in that case, and in that case only, their value at the date of sale is used, or that of the asset acquired with the proceeds. A property still in the deceased’s estate at his death is neither given nor sold within the meaning of the provision; it enters the pool at its value at death, even if sold eleven years later. The text resulting from the 2006 law, applicable to successions opened since 1 January 2007, keeps that structure.
The 2017 price is not the 2006 value. Between the death and the sale, the market has moved, the property may have been maintained or may have deteriorated, and the price obtained results from a negotiation at another date. The later price remains a piece of information: brought back to the date of death by market indices and adjusted for the condition of the property, it serves as a check on the retrospective valuation, as recalled by the article on gifted land valued as bare land. But it does not replace a valuation at the date of death, with the comparable sales of the time, the planning classification and the composition of the property in 2006. The glossary describes the date de valeur and what it requires.
A valuation twenty years after the facts. Reconstructing a value in 2006 requires references from 2006: notarial databases, neighbouring sales of the time, any contemporaneous opinion of value or estate tax return, and a description of the property at that date, photographs, surveys, permits. The report explains how it obtained those elements and what it could not retrieve; it gives a range when the information is thin, rather than a single figure that is no better founded. The article on the valuation date of the home after a long divorce describes the same difficulty.
What is at stake in figures. The indirect advantage received by the legatee, 212,380 euros, is charged against the disposable portion, which is a fraction of the calculation pool. Every extra euro in the pool increases the disposable portion and reduces what the legatee will have to return to the forced heirs. The choice between 451,000 euros and the 2006 value is therefore not an abstract question of method: it directly shifts the sums the heirs owe one another. The guide on lifetime gift partition and the lots between children shows the same mechanism.
The same discipline for rapport. Article 922 concerns reduction; the bringing back of gifts (rapport) follows article 860, with its own date, that of the partition, and its own sale rule. The same asset may therefore have two values in the same file, one for the calculation pool of the reserved portion, the other for rapport; the valuation report distinguishes them and states for each the date and condition adopted, as recalled by the article on the property given on again valued at the second gift.
What the valuer takes from it
- Assets existing at death enter the calculation pool of the reserved portion at their value at the date of death, even if sold afterwards.
- The sale-value rule concerns only assets given away and then sold by the donee before the death.
- The price of a later sale is a check, brought back to the date of death, not a substitute value.
- A retrospective valuation rests on the references and the condition of the property at the chosen date, and says what it could not retrieve.
- Reduction and rapport each have their date; the same asset may have two values in the same report.
Further reading
The Market value page describes the assignment, its timescale and its fee. The guide Lifetime gift partition: valuing the lots between children and the glossary entries réduction des libéralités, quotité disponible and date de valeur complement this article. On the same theme: Inheritance in France: gifted land is valued as bare land and Gift rapport: property given on again is valued at that date. The decision is available on Légifrance.
What next
An estate with a legatee of the disposable portion, an asset sold since, and a reserved portion to compute?
I establish the value of the asset at the date of death, with the references of that date and without settling for the price obtained later, in a report the notary can integrate into the calculation pool of article 922.
Free quote, by email or by phone. No commitment before the quote is accepted. Fees are never linked to the value of the property (Charte de l’expertise, Title I, §2.1).
