Spanish will for foreign property owners
A Spanish will for your assets in Spain decides who inherits and saves your heirs months of paperwork and thousands of euros in apostilles, sworn translations and proceedings back home. With the choice-of-law clause that protects your wishes.
It is a standard clause in wills from the UK and other countries. If you update your will back home after making the Spanish one, you may be revoking the Spanish will without knowing it. In Spain you would be left without a will, exactly what you wanted to avoid.
It also works the other way: a badly drafted Spanish will can cancel the one from your country. The fix is a limited revocation clause in both documents. Only someone who knows the problem exists includes it, and we always do.
I hereby revoke all former wills and testamentary dispositions.
UK will · standard clause · Revokes every earlier will, wherever it was made.
Why a separate one for Spain
What your heirs pay in apostilles, sworn translations, probate and certificates if you have no Spanish will.
Of extra paperwork without a Spanish will, with the 6-month inheritance tax deadline running.
With the art. 22 clause you choose the law of your nationality and set aside Spanish forced heirship.
You sign knowing exactly what it says, without relying on an improvised translation.
The notary registers it with the Spanish Registry of Last Wills. Your heirs never have to look for it.
It covers only your assets in Spain and is coordinated with your home-country will through limited revocation.
Inheritance tax simulator
Each Spanish region sets its own inheritance tax, and the differences are huge. Change the details and compare.
Indicative estimate using each region’s tax scale, relationship reductions and reliefs (current rules; source: Spanish Ministry of Finance). It assumes heirs aged 21 or over, with no prior wealth and not resident in Spain. It is not tax advice.
This is an estimate. The precise simulation applies every reduction in your case.
Get my precise simulationFixed price
You know what you pay before you start.
For one person with assets in Spain.
In Spain each person makes their own. We prepare them together.
The precise calculation for your case and region.
How it works
The only visit is to the notary, and we fit it around your next trip to Spain.
Online and in your language: your property, your family and who you want to leave it to.
A will in Spanish and English, with the choice of law and limited revocation.
At a notary near your property. Signing takes a few minutes.
Only in-person stepThe notary records it in the Registry of Last Wills. You are protected.
Questions
Write to us and we will reply in your language.
info@spanishpropertytaxes.comYour home-country will is valid in Spain, but using it here means your heirs must apostille it, translate it and, depending on the country, go through proceedings such as British probate. A Spanish will for your assets here spares them all that. Both can coexist if each has limited revocation.
By default, your succession is governed by the law of the country where you live when you die. Article 22 of the EU Succession Regulation lets you choose the law of your nationality instead, which sets aside Spanish forced heirship and lets you decide how to split your estate. It affects your whole succession, so a lawyer reviews it with you.
No. We draft it to cover only your assets located in Spain and to fit with your home-country will.
Spain does not allow joint wills: each person makes their own. We prepare them together and you sign them on the same day before the same notary.
No. The will is drafted in Spanish and English so you know what you sign. You will need your NIE.
A registered partner lawyer drafts it and gives the legal advice, and the notary you sign before certifies it. SpanishPropertyTaxes coordinates the process and is your contact in your language.
Yes, whenever you want. In Spain each change is a new will that revokes the previous one. It is worth reviewing after a marriage, a child, a divorce or a new purchase.
Start your will
A partner lawyer writes to you with the next steps. No commitment.