Wills: Do I need both a Spanish a English will?

[Anonymous]

Hiya,

I know this isn´t strictly related to buying a house but!

Can anyone help us as we are receiving conflicting advice regarding the need for both a Spanish and UK will. We life in Spain permenantly, own a house here outright and have no property in the UK but as we have two young children we have a UK will to say what we would like to happen to them if the worst happened.

Our UK solicitor says that this will will not cover any property in Spain. However, our spanish laywer (who incidently was very good at making sure our interests where looked after when we brought our house) thinks that it would do….hence the problem. He has offerred to get a notary to look at it, but as it is in legal english, it would be very hard to translate.

Is our best bet simply to goto a notary here and write another will? Anyone with any experience!

THanks Heather

[Anonymous]

Hi Heather,

It is my understanding that anyone who has a property in Spain MUST have a Spanish will.
An English one will not do.

[Anonymous]

Strictly you don’t need both.

But it’s by far more practical to execute a Spanish Will on your assets in Spain. An English Will can be executed in Spain for your assets here but it would take months upon months to have it executed whilst a Spanish Will is executed quickly in comparison (couple of weeks or less even). It costs approx 120 E to draft it by a Lawyer and a further 40 Euros for the Notary

[marios]

If one of you dies your spanish estate goes to the children 1st unless you have a spanish will that states otherwise.

[Author]

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