Disclaimer. Collectalia is not a legal, tax or insurance advice site. The information on this page is general and based on French legislation in force as of 09/11/2026: it may change, does not necessarily apply outside France and does not take your situation into account. Always have it checked by a notary, a lawyer, an accountant or your insurer before acting on it.
The essentials
- Collection assets are often the least documented part of a family’s wealth: several categories, several places, several holding entities.
- A consolidated inventory brings together owners, currencies, values, insurance and locations, with reports on demand.
- Roles, hideable values and an access log make it possible to open the inventory to each party without showing everything.
In a family’s wealth, works of art, watches, wines, jewellery and cars sometimes weigh heavily, and yet are tracked separately: a spreadsheet with a staff member, valuations with the insurer, invoices in a safe. For a family office, a private bank or a wealth management adviser, art and collectables are rarely consolidated with the rest. This page explains how to remedy that.
Family office and art: the consolidation problem
A single family holds pieces directly, through a société civile, through a foreign company, in joint ownership after an estate. They are in several homes, in storage, on loan to an exhibition, on deposit with a dealer. They are bought and insured in several currencies. Each insurer, each adviser, each heir has part of the information.
The result: it is hard to answer simple questions quickly. What does the family own, by entity? What is the total insured value, and is it up to date? Which policies are coming up for renewal? Where is a given piece today? What should be passed on, and to whom?
What Collectalia brings to the family office
- A single inventory, all categories: works, sculptures, watches, jewellery, wines, books, coins, cars, with the fields specific to each of the 28 categories.
- Several owners and holding entities, attached to each piece, and linked contacts: advisers, insurers, carriers, notaries, heirs.
- Several currencies for prices, valuations and insured values.
- Successive values and valuations, restoration or maintenance expenses, sales.
- Insurance policies and renewal dates, with an automatic reminder before the renewal date or the cancellation deadline.
- Location and movements: homes, safes, storage units, loans.
- Colour PDF reports and Excel exports: inventory, location, insurance, estate; saved searches to retrieve a scope in one click; full export of the space.
Roles, confidentiality and hideable values
The family office administers the space. Family members, advisers and service providers are each given a role: administrator, editor or read-only. Read-only access is free and unlimited; values can be hidden from those users, so that a registrar or a carrier sees the entry and the location without the prices. For a one-off presentation (an insurer, a bank, an expert), a private showroom shares a selection through a password-protected link, with an expiry date and tracking of views.
Data is hosted in France and backed up daily. Two-factor authentication can be required of everyone, and the log of changes and access shows who has viewed or changed what.
Succession and taxation of collection assets
The “Succession” module prepares for what comes next: letter of instructions, intended beneficiaries per piece, a PDF or Excel pre-inventory to hand to the notary. This document is declaratory and does not replace the inventory drawn up by a notary or a court bailiff (commissaire de justice); it makes their work easier (see our page for notaries).
Certain pieces can also be used to pay inheritance and gift taxes, the IFI (real estate wealth tax) or the partition duty (droit de partage) through payment in kind (dation en paiement), after a ministerial approval that sets their value (article 1716 bis of the CGI, minimum of €10,000 per tax). On a sale by an individual, the flat-rate tax of 6% of the price, plus 0.5% CRDS, applies by default, unless the capital gains regime is chosen, which requires proof of the date and price of acquisition: our guide flat-rate tax or capital gain details these rules. In both cases, well-kept invoices and valuations are decisive.
How to work together
- The family office opens the family’s space, or one space per client family with the Pro plan.
- It imports what exists: Excel file with automatic column recognition, then photos and documents added as you go.
- It invites each party with the right role, and produces reports on demand. The plans are presented on the pricing page.
For insurance rules, see also agreed value or declared value.
With Collectalia
All of the family’s collection pieces, across all entities and in all currencies, in a single documented inventory: values, insurance, location, succession. Each party accesses it according to their role, without seeing more than necessary.
Disclaimer. Collectalia is not a legal, tax or insurance advice site. The information on this page is general and based on French legislation in force as of 09/11/2026: it may change, does not necessarily apply outside France and does not take your situation into account. Always have it checked by a notary, a lawyer, an accountant or your insurer before acting on it.