Writing English Will in Spain

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El Cid
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby El Cid » Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:13 pm

Absolutely right. You need professional advice on this as it depends on many things.

What your lawyer says is usually the right advice - if you have an unusual circumstance such as just having a bank account in the UK then the advice might be different.

If you include the Spanish property in your UK will then you will be bound by Spanish inheritance law on the Spanish assets, which could be very difficult depending on your personal circumstance.

At the end of the day, you can do exactly what you want with your wills, but if you get it wrong the consequences can be contrary to what you wanted.

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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Sun May 02, 2021 3:19 pm

So just bringing this up again. I have been told by BritishWill.com that I only need to have one will and that I can have a UK will which will cover both Spain and the UK.

But I feel it would be best to have a Spanish will as well as a British Will.

Any advice on this!
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katy
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby katy » Sun May 02, 2021 3:33 pm

Do you have assets in the UK? If you only have assets in Spain best to have a Spanish wii otherwise a lengthy process. Avoid all those will writing sites in UK. If complicated best to get an international lawyer.

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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Sun May 02, 2021 3:33 pm

Have been told by the company that the law in Brussels allows the British will to deal with all Spanish assets.

*I have attached information (please read as you may find interesting) on the Brussels IV clause, which would most definitely be included in your British Will, basically it is a legislative clause that allows your Spanish assets to be left under a British rule of succession not the Spanish rule of succession".
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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Sun May 02, 2021 3:34 pm

katy wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 3:33 pm Do you have assets in the UK? If you only have assets in Spain best to have a Spanish wii otherwise a lengthy process. Avoid all those will writing sites in UK. If complicated best to get an international lawyer.
Yes I do have assets in the UK. I own a property there.

So would I need a UK will as well as a Spanish will!
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Beachcomber
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Beachcomber » Sun May 02, 2021 4:27 pm

Disposing of Spanish assets under a UK will is expensive and time consuming. If you have assets in both countries you should have both Spanish and UK wills.

The Spanish will should include the fact that your assets will be distributed according to your personal law in the country of your nationality. A notary accustomed to dealing with foreigners will be familiar with the necessary wording.

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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Pamela1 » Sun May 02, 2021 5:31 pm

Interesting info, what about according to the law in the country of your residence? does that apply? I'm asking out of interest, OTH is Spanish but resides in Uk.

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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Sun May 02, 2021 5:32 pm

Beachcomber wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 4:27 pm Disposing of Spanish assets under a UK will is expensive and time consuming. If you have assets in both countries you should have both Spanish and UK wills.

The Spanish will should include the fact that your assets will be distributed according to your personal law in the country of your nationality. A notary accustomed to dealing with foreigners will be familiar with the necessary wording.
Thanks for that Beach. I will go to a solicitor. :thumbup:

So could I use this company to write a UK will and then get a Spanish will written up here with a Spanish solicitor! or notary. Will they know what I need in terms of Power of Attorney, Executor etc!!
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Beachcomber » Sun May 02, 2021 5:48 pm

I wouldn't use that company at all but that is up to you.

On the Spanish side, if you go directly to a notary who is accustomed to dealing with foreigners he will know exactly what you need to do and you will just pay his standard fee which depends basically on the number of pages it covers. Unless you can speak Spanish fairly fluently it will need to be in dual columns of Spanish and English which will obviously cover more pages.

If you go via a lawyer, which is not necessary, you will pay the fee of both the lawyer and the notary.

Your will is independent of that of your husband so it is your personal law that applies.

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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Sun May 02, 2021 6:33 pm

So will I still need two wills! One English and one Spanish!

Will he know how to write the will out. I am confused on that side of things!
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Beachcomber » Mon May 03, 2021 6:54 am

You need a Spanish will for your Spanish assets and an English one for your UK assets. It is important that they do not contradict each other and that each one only cover the assets located in each country.

The Spanish will does not need to list the assets but will cover 'all wealth, rights, assets and shares situated in Spain at the time of your death'. The notary will know how to write the Spanish will, it is an integral part of his job.

The procedure for an English will is much less formal but the Spanish notary will not involve himself in this. My wife and I wrote our own English wills (you can obtain the wording from the internet if necessary) and we have left all the paperwork for both our English and Spanish wills with a younger English speaking Spanish friend who is, but only by coincidence, a Spanish lawyer.

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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Mon May 03, 2021 9:27 am

That sounds good Beach. Just one more thing, does the English will have to be in Spanish as well!!

Thanks very much for your help :thumbup:
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Wicksey
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Wicksey » Mon May 03, 2021 10:24 am

For the Spanish will we used the notary on Torrox Costa next to the Repsol petrol station:
Notaría Juan Luis Gómez Ávila, Calle Almería, 1, km.282, 29793 Torrox Costa
It was a few years back but he spoke perfect English, he did the will both in Spanish and English, and the cost was about 38€ each. You have to have a clause put in that you want the will to be treated under UK laws, or something like that. Very easy to do.

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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Beachcomber » Mon May 03, 2021 12:16 pm

A good knowledgable, bilingual notary with whom you can deal directly is worth his weight in gold and is far preferable to allowing the intervention of a third party fee collector.

A UK will does not need to be in Spanish.

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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Mon May 03, 2021 12:54 pm

OK that sounds great. Thank you to both of you. I walked past the Noteria that Wicksey this morning, so I will go along with that. :thumbup:

So thank you to both of you for helping me out :D
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby rafiki » Tue May 04, 2021 1:30 pm

We used our UK solicitor to make our English Wills. All the details up to the draft sorted by email and the final copies mailed to us here. They were signed and witnessed here then returned to the solicitor for safe storage.
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patricia
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby patricia » Tue May 04, 2021 2:32 pm

I do not have a solicitor in the UK which is why I was going to use BritishWill.com, however it seems I do not need to and only need to make a will in Spain with correct wording.

Thanks anyway. :thumbup:
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Wicksey
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Wicksey » Tue May 18, 2021 10:08 am

Beachcomber wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 6:54 am
The procedure for an English will is much less formal but the Spanish notary will not involve himself in this. My wife and I wrote our own English wills (you can obtain the wording from the internet if necessary) and we have left all the paperwork for both our English and Spanish wills with a younger English speaking Spanish friend who is, but only by coincidence, a Spanish lawyer.
I am raising this again as we've started to go through some of our 'stuff' here as we've been in this house a record 10 years and we realise how many things we have just moved here without going through. One of those things is our British wills. We have left all of our UK assets to charities but we now want to change some of those. Our original solicitors said we could add codicils for free but they have been taken over and we've now been told we cannot do that, we need to make new wills ..... 550 pounds + VAT :wtf:

We currently have a house and bank accounts there so need to do this. I was interested to read what you said Beach as we have our current wills, and presumably could just copy them and change the benefactors accordingly. How do you make it legally recognised though? Our big problem is that we would need someone to act as executor, so I'm not sure we could afford not to appoint a solicitor.

In time we envisage selling our UK house and our current home here and buying a bigger house in the Canaries, so eventually we won't have any significant assets in the UK, so probably the UK will be not be important then. That is still a few years away though I think.

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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Pamela1 » Wed May 19, 2021 11:00 am

Pamela1 wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 5:31 pm Interesting info, what about according to the law in the country of your residence? does that apply? I'm asking out of interest, OTH is Spanish but resides in Uk.
Further to this question which no one was able to answer, understandably so.. I looked further into this and contacted spanish/ uk lawyers here in the uk...I got conflicting information, they were more interested in signing me up to their wills service ( already have them in place) at a cost of £850 + vat for a SINGLE will and a translated copy in English..Plus extras for notario.Go figure :wtf:

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Wicksey
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Re: Writing English Will in Spain

Postby Wicksey » Wed May 19, 2021 4:48 pm

The cheapest mirror wills we have found so far is the Co-Op at 245 pounds including VAT. It's so annoying as it's just a case of changing a couple of beneficiaries. One is already Cancer Research who say they have solicitors who do free wills on their behalf. So far, the first one I have contacted says they no longer do them. We do need someone to act as executor so really need a solicitor to do that as we have no-one else to do it.


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