The final panel of the PCD London Conference 2026 brought together three continental European private client specialists to map the succession minefield facing internationally mobile families with assets in France, Switzerland, and Italy. The technical density of what followed was considerable — and the stakes, as each speaker made clear, are high.

Caroline Cohen, Founding Partner of The French Law Practice in London, opened with a question that confronts many British clients with French property: is it better to have a single UK will covering worldwide assets, or to have a separate French will? Her answer, perhaps surprisingly given French legal complexity, was the single UK will — and she noted this was not a view she would have held confidently a decade ago. The EU Succession Regulation, in force in France since 2015, has transformed how French notaries approach foreign estates. They now routinely apply English law to French assets when a British testator has made the appropriate election, and they do so competently.

The key is drafting. A UK will must contain an explicit election for the law of the testator's nationality, and it must include a specific, direct provision dealing with the French property — an outright gift to identified beneficiaries. The French asset must not fall into the residual estate, because residual estates under English law frequently give rise to trusts, and France does not recognise trusts in relation to French property. A French notary cannot administer a trust over a Provençal farmhouse. The outright gift, clearly identified, is the solution.

What French law cannot offer — and where British clients frequently receive incorrect advice — is the equivalent of the UK's potentially exempt transfer. In France, lifetime gifts to children attract gift tax at the same progressive rates as inheritance, with allowances reset every fifteen years. There is no seven-year survivorship rule. A British client with a French property who gifts it to their adult children will pay French gift tax on the transfer, regardless of how long they subsequently live. There is no bilateral treaty covering lifetime gifts, only one covering inheritance.

The discount structure of giving away bare ownership while retaining a usufruct — a highly efficient French tax planning tool — is also a disaster when applied to UK-resident clients. HMRC treats the usufruct as a settlement, triggering an immediate entry charge, periodic charges, and potential capital gains tax on exit. A French notary advising on this structure in isolation, without UK tax input, can inadvertently create a significant problem.

Guillaume Grisel, Partner at Schellenberg Wittmer in Geneva, outlined the Swiss position. Switzerland is not an EU member state and is not bound by the Brussels IV succession regulation. Its own rules, however, operate on similar principles: a presumption toward a single will for worldwide assets, uniform governing law, and an expectation that a foreign grant of probate will be recognised. In practice, that last presumption breaks down. A French acte de notoriété works well in Switzerland because it is specific about who inherits and in what shares. An English or US grant of probate typically is not, and Swiss banks will not automatically release funds on the basis of one. A Swiss grant of probate — or its equivalent — is often required.

The practical implication for a UK client with a valuable ski chalet in Switzerland is that the will should either deal with the Swiss asset directly and specifically, or a separate Swiss will can be prepared. Trusts present the same difficulty as in France: Swiss property cannot easily pass through an English executorship in the usual way, because executorships carry trust-like characteristics. Direct gifts to named beneficiaries, within the governing law chosen for the Swiss assets, are the clean solution. Grisel also noted that the European Certificate of Succession meets Swiss requirements and will be recognised by Swiss banks — a useful shortcut for EU-based executors.

Andrea Vicari, Founder of VicariAvvocati with offices across Italy and now Paris, offered a sobering account of Italian law. Italy has forced heirship provisions for spouses and children that represent a fundamental constraint on testamentary freedom. Succession agreements — including certain types of pre-death planning through trusts — must be assessed against the forced share rules. And as the number of clients arriving in Italy under the flat tax lump-sum regime has grown, so has the frequency of expensive errors: individuals who came with excellent tax planning but no private law advice, and who are now embroiled in litigation over succession validity or matrimonial property rights.

The conference's final session was, in its own way, the most technically demanding of the day — a reminder that European succession law rewards careful, coordinated advice across jurisdictions, and punishes assumptions.