International inheritance: which law applies and what you can choose

The law of the State where the deceased had their habitual residence at the time of death, and this same law governs the entire succession. Nationality does not matter, the country where the assets are located does not matter, and it does not matter if they are accounts, shares or real estate. A single law applies to the whole inheritance, including forced heirship (legítimas), which is the portion the law obligatorily reserves for certain relatives.

This rule arrived with the European Succession Regulation (Reglamento 650/2012) and applies to people who died on or after 17 August 2015. Previously, the nationality of the deceased decided the matter in Spain, which is exactly the opposite. That is why a will designed under the old rule might today produce a distribution that its author would never have signed.

The system is universal: it works even if the designated law is that of a country outside the European Union. A deceased person residing in the United States, Morocco or the United Arab Emirates falls into the scheme just the same, as does a resident in Spain with any of those nationalities.

Habitual residence is not the empadronamiento (town hall registration), nor the residence card, nor a box on the income tax return. The deceased's entire life in the years prior to death is assessed: where they truly lived, where their family was, where their centre of interests was located and with which country they maintained a stable and lasting link. Anyone who splits the year between 2 countries leaves open a discussion that their heirs will have to close, with the resulting bill and delay.

There is an escape valve, and it is truly exceptional: if it is clear from all the circumstances of the case that the deceased had a manifestly closer connection with another State, the law of that other State applies. It is not an option that heirs can activate because it suits them, it is assessed by the authority processing the succession in light of the facts, and the criteria are not strictly defined in the rule.

2 nuances that should be clear from the start: Denmark and Ireland do not apply these rules, and neither does the United Kingdom, so with those 3 countries the problem is resolved through other channels.

Yes, and it is the most important decision in all planning. It is called professio iuris and consists of designating, in the will itself, the law of the State whose nationality you possess. The nationality you hold when making the choice or the one you hold when you die is valid, and anyone with multiple nationalities can choose the law of any of them.

The choice is limited, and this is where most mistakes are made. You cannot choose the law of the country where your assets are located, nor the law of your residence, nor that of a third State that is more convenient for you. Only that of your nationality. If that law does not serve your purposes, the solution is to plan your estate, not to choose another law.

It must be done expressly, in a disposition upon death, or be clearly evident from the terms of the will itself. The Directorate General for Legal Certainty and Public Faith has repeated this in resolution after resolution when reviewing inheritances that the land registry had rejected: if the will does not state which law governs the succession, the notario (Spanish notary) and the registrar have to find out, and the result may not be what the testator imagined.

What the choice achieves is much more than a preference. It displaces the general rule of habitual residence, so your succession is fixed even if you change countries 3 more times. It closes the door to renvoi, which is the mechanism we explain in the next section. And it opens the possibility for the interested parties to agree on which courts to submit to if they end up in a dispute.

There is a transitional regime that saves many old wills. Those granted before 17 August 2015 in which the testator stated that they were disposing according to their national law can be valid as a choice of law, even if Spanish law did not recognise this concept at the time. It is a review worth doing before giving up on an old will.

Managora drafts the will with the choice of law clause, checks if you have previous wills that contradict it and prepares the signing before a notario, which is the step that gives it full effect. You can see the updated amount on the service page.

It depends on 2 things: where you have your habitual residence when you die and whether or not you chose your national law in your will. This is the case that generates the most discussions and almost always due to the same mistaken belief: that Spanish law always applies to a property located in Spain and another law applies to the rest of the estate. It does not work like that. The succession is not chopped up by countries or by type of asset.

If you reside in Spain and did not choose your national law, Spanish law applies to your entire inheritance, including the accounts you have in London or New York. And common Spanish civil law reserves 2 thirds of the hereditary estate for children and descendants: 1 third of strict forced heirship and 1 third for improvement. You are left with 1 third of free disposal. That is the real margin to leave the property to your partner, a friend or a foundation.

If you reside outside the European Union and only have the house in Spain, the path is more convoluted. The applicable law is that of the third State where you reside, but if the conflict rules of that State return the real estate to the law of the country where it is located, which is common in Anglo-Saxon systems, the Regulation accepts this renvoi and the Spanish property may end up governed by Spanish law, with its forced heirship rules. This is exactly what the choice of law blocks: when there is professio iuris, renvoi does not operate.

The law of England and Wales does not recognise forced heirship and allows you to dispose with much more freedom, although it admits claims from relatives and dependents in certain cases. The laws of the different States of the United States vary from each other and you have to look at the relevant one. The important thing is that this freedom only reaches your Spanish inheritance if you expressly bring it in with the choice of law.

And a practical warning: even if the distribution is correct, the Spanish land registry does not register an international inheritance without it being proven which law governs the succession and what that law says. Inheritances that get stuck at the end usually get stuck there, not at the notario.

Managora reviews your current will, tells you which law is being applied to you today and prepares the one you need so that the distribution is what you want.

Spain does not have a single succession law. Alongside common civil law coexist the specific civil laws of Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, the Balearic Islands, Galicia and the Basque Country, and the forced heirship rules they set are very different from each other. Saying that Spanish law applies does not end the problem: you still have to decide which one.

When the deceased is Spanish, the answer is given by their civil neighbourhood (vecindad civil), which is the link that subjects them to one civil law or another. And here is the trap that almost no one sees coming: civil neighbourhood changes on its own through continuous residence. 10 years of residence in a territory with its own civil law modify it if not declared otherwise, and 2 years are enough if that will is expressed before the Registro Civil (Civil Registry, which records births, marriages and deaths). Someone who moved 12 years ago may today have a different civil neighbourhood than they think, and with it a different forced heirship rule.

When the deceased is a foreigner, things change, because a foreigner does not have a civil neighbourhood. The Regulation refers to the internal rules of the State to distribute among its territorial units and, when those rules do not resolve the case, the applicable law is that of the territorial unit with which the deceased had the closest connection, which in practice is usually that of their habitual residence. Put plainly: a German who lived in Denia and a German who lived in Girona may not have the same forced heirship rule.

That is why you will not find a table of percentages by autonomous community in this guide. The figures of the specific civil laws change from one territory to another and any calculation must be done with the specific rule that corresponds to your case, not with an average.

With the European Succession Certificate. It is a document created by the Regulation itself so that an heir, a legatee, an executor of a will or an administrator of the estate can prove their status and powers in any participating Member State, without having to homologate anything. Once issued, it is recognised in all of them without any special procedure: no exequatur, no apostille, and no second declaration of heirs in each country is needed.

It is requested using form IV of the European regulation that approved the models, and the certificate is issued on form V. The issuing authority provides authentic copies, and these copies have a limited validity of 6 months from their issuance. After that period, an extension or a new copy must be requested, which in practice forces you to organise your timing well: it makes no sense to obtain it before knowing which bank or registry is going to ask for it.

The certificate is not mandatory and does not replace Spanish documents. The will, the death certificate, the certificate of last will acts and the notarial act of declaration of heirs remain the title with which the inheritance is processed within Spain. The European Succession Certificate is the key for what is outside: unlocking an account in Frankfurt, selling an apartment in Lisbon or collecting insurance in the Netherlands without each entity asking you for a different piece of paper.

It also works in reverse. If the deceased died in another Member State and the heirs have to register a property in Spain, the certificate serves as a title for land registration. Where it does not work is in Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom, which do not apply these rules.

Managora processes the European Succession Certificate and the complete management of the cross-border inheritance, including the relationship with the entities of the country where the assets are located. The updated amount is on the service page.

The general rule repeats that of the applicable law: the courts of the Member State in which the deceased had their habitual residence at death have jurisdiction over the succession as a whole. Law and court coincide, which is exactly what was intended when writing the Regulation.

If the deceased chose their national law and that law is that of a Member State, the scheme can be aligned: the interested parties can agree in writing to submit to the courts of that State, or the court that was hearing the case can decline jurisdiction in their favour. This is another practical advantage of having made the choice of law during one's lifetime, and it shows when the inheritance ends up in litigation.

When the last habitual residence was outside the European Union, forums still exist in Spain, based mainly on the assets located here and the nationality of the deceased. You are not left without a court, but the scope of what that court can decide is more limited.

It is advisable not to confuse litigation with ordinary processing. The vast majority of inheritances do not go to trial: they are processed before a notario and registered in the land registry, and these non-contentious actions do not follow the rules of judicial jurisdiction of the Regulation.

Civil law and tax law are decided by different rules and this is the second great misunderstanding in this matter. The fact that your succession is governed by German law does not transfer the tax to Germany, and the fact that your children inherit according to British law does not free them from the Spanish Inheritance and Gift Tax.

In Spain, the rule is about who receives, not who dies. If the heir resides in Spain, they are taxed by personal obligation, that is, on everything they receive, regardless of where the deceased was and in which country the assets are located. If the heir does not reside in Spain, they are taxed on the assets and rights located in Spanish territory.

There is no single figure for all of Spain. The tax is state-level but is ceded to the autonomous communities of the common regime, which set their own reductions, rates, coefficients and bonuses on top of that state framework, Canary Islands included. Ceuta and Melilla are autonomous cities, they do not have a legislative assembly and do not set their own tax regulations by law: state law applies to them, which establishes a 50 per 100 bonus on the quota in acquisitions upon death when the deceased had their habitual residence there on the accrual date. The truly different case is that of the Basque Country and Navarre: due to their regional regimes of Concierto and Convenio they have their own tax regulations, not a discount on the state one. Any number you see on the internet without saying which territory it corresponds to is useless for calculating your case.

For what has already been paid abroad, there is a deduction for international double taxation: the lesser of 2 amounts is subtracted, the tax actually paid abroad for those assets or the result of applying the average rate of the Spanish tax to the value of the assets located outside. And there is a short deadline that is easily missed when the documentation comes from another country: the tax is filed within the 6 months following the death, with the possibility of requesting an extension if requested within the first 5 months.

Managora covers the 3 pieces of this matter: the will with choice of law so that your estate passes to whomever you decide, the European Succession Certificate to prove the status of heir outside Spain, and the settlement in Spain of the inheritance with assets abroad. You can see the updated amount of each service on its page and open the file today, without travelling.