The bank will not let you touch the deceased's money: which documents it demands and the order to get them

The reason is article 8.1.a of Ley 29/1987, the Spanish Inheritance and Gift Tax Act. That provision makes financial intermediaries and other entities that have handed over deposited cash and securities, or released the guarantees held, subsidiary parties liable for the tax. Translated: if the bank gives you the money and you do not settle the tax, the tax authority claims it from the bank. That is why the bank does not release a single euro until the file is complete.

Freezing does not mean the money disappears or that the bank keeps it. It means the bank stops allowing withdrawals against the deceased's balance until it closes what it calls the expediente de testamentaría (the estate file). The account still exists, the balance still belongs to the estate and interest keeps accruing.

The Banco de España (the Spanish central bank, which supervises banking conduct) sets no maximum period for that file, but it does require banks to act with the utmost diligence and without incurring unjustified delay. That wording is what supports a complaint when the bank has spent months without answering.

Order matters because each document unlocks the next one. The certificado de últimas voluntades (last will registry certificate) tells you which notario (Spanish notary) the will was signed before, and without knowing that you cannot request the authorised copy. Without the copy of the will you do not know who inherits, and without knowing who inherits nobody can sign the deed of acceptance or settle the tax. Trying to skip a step is the most frequent reason a file drags on forever.

There is a time wall at the start of the process: neither the certificado de últimas voluntades nor the insurance contracts certificate can be requested until 15 working days have passed since the date of death. That is what the Ministerio de Justicia (the Spanish Ministry of Justice) electronic office states for the last will certificate, and article 12 of Real Decreto 398/2007 for the insurance one. It is not a step that can be speeded up.

The certificate of death cover insurance contracts is the document most people skip and the one that recovers the most money. It lists the life and loan protection policies the deceased had taken out, very common when there was a mortgage. The Registro has a maximum of 7 working days to issue it from the date the application is filed, under article 13 of Real Decreto 398/2007, and the data stays available for 5 years, under article 11.

If there is no will, the document that takes its place is the notarial deed of declaration of heirs abintestato, governed by articles 55 and 56 of the Ley del Notariado (the Spanish Notaries Act). It is signed before a notario and we coordinate the signing and the paperwork: you do not have to hunt for firms or compare them.

The bank has no fixed legal deadline to release the balance. The figures from the study OCU (the main Spanish consumer organisation) published on 6 June 2024 show the real size of the problem: 45% of those surveyed took 6 months to close the process with their bank and 22% took more than 1 year. 65% ran into some obstacle and 60% rated the experience as unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory.

The deadline that is set by law, and the only one that can cost you a surcharge, is the Impuesto de Sucesiones one. Article 67 of Real Decreto 1629/1991 sets 6 months from the date of death to file the paperwork. Article 68 allows you to ask for a further 6 months, but the application has to be filed within the first 5 months of the initial period and late payment interest accrues during the extension.

This mismatch is the heart of the problem: Hacienda (the Spanish tax authority, also called AEAT) counts 6 months and the bank counts none. The tax can fall due while the money is still frozen. The section on paying the tax explains the way out that the law itself provides for that situation.

One deadline almost nobody has in mind: if another interested party formally requires you before a notario to accept or renounce the inheritance, you have 30 calendar days to decide, and if you stay silent it is treated as accepted outright, under article 1005 of the Código Civil (the Spanish Civil Code).

Here is the warning that is worth money. The Banco de España has established that no amount at all may be charged for issuing the deceased's certificate of positions, because it is a document needed to comply with a legal obligation, settling the Impuesto de Sucesiones. And it adds something just as important: obtaining that certificate must not be made conditional in any way on instructing the bank to handle the estate file.

Nor can the bank charge you for information on transactions after the death, which the Banco de España considers contrary to good banking practice, nor for transactions in the 12 months before the death, because they may be needed to meet tax obligations. Only if you ask for transactions going further back than those 12 months is charging considered justified.

The estate handling fee itself is not improper in every case, and it is worth knowing that before you complain. The Banco de España accepts the charge when the bank provides a genuine service guiding the heirs on the documents and the steps, comparable to that of an outside professional. But it requires 3 cumulative conditions: that the heirs are informed of the fee in advance, that they expressly accept that service, and that the charge is made once the process has finished, not before.

What never justifies a charge is merely studying and checking the inheritance paperwork. That is internal work the bank carries out in its own interest and to meet its duty of diligence, and it is not the provision of a banking service to the customer. If you have been charged a fee without being told in writing beforehand and without accepting anything, your complaint has solid grounds.

One last documented abuse: almost 20% of the people surveyed by OCU were forced to take out a product with the bank as a condition for receiving the inheritance. You are not obliged to open an account with the deceased's bank in order to collect what you inherit.

The law foresaw exactly this deadlock. Article 8.1.a of Ley 29/1987 itself states that issuing a banker's draft made out to the tax authority whose sole purpose is paying the Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones on that same transfer is not treated as handing over funds, and therefore creates no liability for the bank.

In other words: the bank can issue, charged to the frozen balance, a cheque in favour of the tax authority to pay the tax, and in doing so it incurs no liability. It is not a favour from the bank or a discretionary exception, it is what the rule says. If they tell you it is impossible, that refusal can be complained about.

Article 8.1.b sets out the same exception for insurance companies: they can make a payment on account of the benefit by means of a cheque made out to the tax authority solely to pay that tax. It is the usual route when the bulk of the estate is a life insurance policy.

If even so the calendar does not work out, the way out is the extension in article 68 of Real Decreto 1629/1991. It is applied for within the first 5 months and gives 6 months more, in exchange for late payment interest. Missing that fifth month is a mistake that cannot be fixed later.

This is the situation that causes the most outrage and the one explained worst at the branch. Being a joint holder of a cuenta indistinta (a joint account either holder can operate alone) does not make you the owner of the money. Joint ownership gives you the power to operate the account with the bank, but ownership of the funds is determined by the internal relationship between the holders and, above all, by the origin of the money that fed the account.

The consequence is direct: the part of the balance that belonged to the deceased forms part of the estate and is taxed under the Impuesto de Sucesiones, even though your name is on the contract and even though until yesterday you took money out of the cash machine without any problem. The power to operate jointly lasts while the holders are alive, but it does not extend beyond the death of one of them, at which point the civil rules of succession come into play.

That is why banks also freeze cuentas indistintas or limit withdrawals to the surviving joint holder's share. If you are going to argue with the bank about what percentage of the balance was the deceased's, the proof is documentary: who paid the money in and where it came from. That is the work we do when we prepare the file.

A complaint has 2 stages and the first one is compulsory. You have to go first to the bank's own customer service department, the Servicio de Atención al Cliente. Without evidence of that first step, the Banco de España will not accept the complaint.

The Servicio de Atención al Cliente response times differ by subject matter: 15 working days for payment services, 1 month in all other cases when the complainant is an individual, and 2 months when the customer is not a consumer. Once the period passes with no answer, or with an answer that does not satisfy you, the second stage opens.

The second stage is the Banco de España Market Conduct and Complaints Department. You have 1 year from the date you filed the complaint with the bank to go to it. After that year your file is not accepted, and that is the mistake that has sunk the most legitimate complaints.

The complaint has to ask for specific things: refund of the amount charged, a copy of the document in which you supposedly accepted the service, and the date you were informed of the fee. If the bank cannot produce the prior information or the acceptance, the charge does not stand up against the Banco de España criterion.

We do both things in the same file: we ask each bank for the certificate of positions and handle the unfreezing, and we review the charges applied in order to claim back the improper ones. Our fee and the Ministerio de Justicia tasas (the official government fees) are shown on the service page.