A couple who concealed a change in their marriage contract from their children did not commit fraud, a French court has ruled.

Many expats who relocate to France choose to enter into a post nuptial agreement, or French 'marriage contract'.

The agreement covers the division of assets on death and, to a lesser extent, divorce.

The favoured form of contract for expats is the communauté universelle with the clause, d'attribution intégrale. This ensures that the surviving partner inherits the whole estate on death of their spouse.

However, strictly speaking, this post-nuptial agreement is not available to those with children from a previous marriage as it disenfranchises one side of the family from the inheritance; the children of the last surviving spouse would inherit all the estate, thereby depriving the children of the first deceased of their inheritance.

Accordingly, French courts take a dim view of couples who conceal the existence of any of their offspring from another relationship.

Where concealment has occurred, then the courts have sometimes decided (perhaps following death of one or both of the parties) that the marriage contract should be annulled and that the division of the estate must take place on the basis of a proper recognition of the inheritance rights of all children.

So it was with interest to read of a recent legal judgement where the court decided that a change of marriage regime that concealed the existence of a child was not fraudulent.

In this case, a French couple who had been married 40 years previously under a marriage regime under which all assets created since the marriage were shared (régime de la communauté de meubles et acquêts) changed their marriage regime to one in which all assets were kept separate (régime de separation de biens).

The couple did not declare the existence of a child of the husband from another relationship. This child later brought an action in the courts to nullify the change in the marriage regime, as she claimed that the division of assets carried out favoured her step-mother.

The French courts decided that, although the couple acted improperly in concealing the existence of the child, as it had no effect on their legal inheritance rights, no fraudulent act was committed.

The court did not consider whether the actual division of assets that had taken place was carried out to the advantage of the wife, as this was a matter for the parties to determine, despite the fact that this was the crux of the issue that the daughter wished the court to consider.

You can read more about French marriage contracts in our comprehensive guide to French Inheritance Laws and Taxation.