What Happens to My UK Assets When I Die Abroad?

International estate planning is one of the most overlooked aspects of financial planning for expatriates. Many internationally mobile individuals assume that their UK will handles everything, or that their country of residence's succession laws will govern their UK assets. Neither assumption is reliably correct.

The reality is that cross-border succession involves two interacting legal systems — at minimum — and getting the structure wrong creates delay, expense, and in the worst cases, outcomes that bear no relation to what you intended.

The situs concept: where assets are legally located

The starting point for any cross-border estate is the concept of situs — the legal location of an asset. Different assets have different situs rules:

• UK land and property: UK situs, always
• UK bank accounts and deposits: Generally UK situs
• UK company shares (shares in UK-incorporated companies): UK situs
• Debts owed by UK residents: Generally UK situs
• Shares in a foreign company held through a UK custodian: The situs is the country of incorporation of the company, not the location of the custodian
• Assets held in foreign bank accounts: Situs is generally the country where the bank branch is located

Why does situs matter? Because the succession laws that govern an asset — and the country with jurisdiction to administer it — are typically determined by where the asset is situated. UK situs assets are generally governed by UK law for succession and administration purposes, regardless of where the owner was resident or domiciled at death.

Which country's succession law applies?

This is the question that creates most of the difficulty in international estates.

In the UK, the traditional common law position was:

• Immovable property (land, property) is governed by the law of the country where it is situated
• Movable property (bank accounts, investments, personal property) is governed by the law of the owner's domicile at death

For a UK-domiciled individual who died while resident in Spain, their UK property would be governed by UK law; their Spanish apartment by Spanish law; and their investment portfolio (movable property) by UK law (as their domicile).

This becomes complicated when the two countries' laws conflict — for example, if UK law says the estate passes entirely to the surviving spouse, but Spanish law requires a portion to pass to the deceased's children (forced heirship).

Forced heirship in Europe and beyond

Many countries — including Spain, France, Italy, and most EU member states — have forced heirship rules: legal provisions that allocate a fixed percentage of the estate to specific relatives (typically children), regardless of what the will says.

In Spain, for example, children have a legal right (the legítima) to two-thirds of the estate in aggregate. A surviving spouse also has limited forced heirship rights. A Spanish will that tries to leave everything to a charity and nothing to the children can be challenged.

The EU Succession Regulation (Brussels IV), which came into effect in 2015, introduced an important tool for EU-resident individuals: you can elect for the succession of your entire estate (wherever situated) to be governed by the law of your nationality, rather than the law of your country of residence.

For a UK national resident in Spain, this means you can elect for UK succession law to govern your estate — including your Spanish property. UK succession law has no forced heirship provisions; you are free to leave your estate to anyone you choose.

This election must be made explicitly in your will. It does not happen automatically. If you are an EU-resident UK national and have not made a Brussels IV election in your will, your estate may be subject to forced heirship.

Note: Brussels IV's application to UK nationals living in EU member states post-Brexit has some complexity. The regulation continues to apply within EU member states, and UK nationals can make the election — but the interaction with UK law requires specific legal advice.

UK probate for overseas-resident deceased

If a person dies abroad but has UK situs assets (a UK bank account, UK property, UK investments), those assets will need to go through UK probate (or, in Scotland, confirmation) before they can be transferred to beneficiaries.

UK probate for an overseas-resident deceased follows the same process as for a UK resident, but typically requires:

• A certified and apostilled copy of the foreign death certificate, translated into English
• Potentially, a grant of probate obtained in the country of death, which can then be resealed in the UK
• A UK solicitor to administer the UK estate, even if the overseas estate has separate executors
• Potentially significant delays (UK probate currently takes 6–12 months in many cases, with further delays if the estate is contested or complicated)

For families living abroad, this means that access to UK bank accounts, the ability to sell UK property, and the distribution of UK investments may be frozen for a year or more after death. Having adequate liquidity outside the UK — in the family's country of residence — is therefore important.

How to structure assets to simplify your international estate

Several structural approaches can reduce the complexity and delay of a cross-border estate:

Joint ownership. Assets held in joint names (with right of survivorship) pass automatically to the surviving co-owner without probate. UK bank accounts and property can typically be held in joint names. This does not avoid IHT but does avoid the probate delay.

Pension nominations. UK pensions pass outside the estate via a nomination of beneficiaries — no probate required. Keep nominations up to date with the scheme administrator.

Life insurance written in trust. A life insurance policy written in trust pays directly to the trust (and ultimately the beneficiaries) without requiring probate and without forming part of the estate for IHT purposes.

Offshore investment bonds. Offshore bonds can be assigned or held in trust structures that allow them to pass to beneficiaries without UK probate.

Consolidation of UK investments. Having UK investments concentrated at one custodian (one platform, one broker) rather than scattered across five or six institutions simplifies the administration significantly.

Multiple wills. Having a UK will dealing with UK assets and a will in each other relevant jurisdiction (Spain, Cyprus, etc.) dealing with local assets is generally more efficient than a single international will. Each will should expressly state that it is limited to assets in its jurisdiction to avoid revocation.

Brussels IV election (for EU-resident UK nationals): Include an explicit nationality election in your will if you want UK succession law to govern your entire estate.

The two mistakes that cause most of the difficulty

Most cross-border estates that go badly wrong do so for one of two reasons, and neither is exotic.

A later will revoked an earlier one by accident. Wills routinely open with a clause revoking all previous testamentary dispositions. Where someone makes a UK will, moves abroad, and then makes a local will drafted to the local standard, that revocation clause can wipe out the UK will entirely — leaving UK assets to pass under intestacy rather than under the arrangements that were carefully made for them. This is why the multiple-wills approach described above depends on each will expressly limiting itself to assets in its own jurisdiction, and on the two being drafted with sight of one another rather than years apart by lawyers who never spoke.

Nobody could find anything. An estate that is administratively simple in principle becomes expensive in practice when the executors do not know what exists. UK accounts opened decades ago, a pension from an employment two countries back, an investment platform reached only through an app on a phone nobody can unlock — each has to be located, evidenced and claimed separately, from abroad, in a language the institution may not accept.

What to leave behind besides a will

Alongside the structural steps set out above, a short, current and findable schedule of your affairs does more practical good than almost anything else. It is not a legal document and does not need to be drafted by a lawyer. It should say, in plain terms:

• Which institutions hold what, in which country, and roughly what the asset is
• Where the original title documents, share certificates and policy documents physically are
• Who the professional advisers are — solicitor, accountant, adviser — in each jurisdiction, and how to reach them
• Which pensions exist and who administers them, since these pass outside the estate and need to be claimed from the scheme rather than through probate
• Where the wills are held, and who holds them

Keep it with the wills, tell the executors it exists, and review it when anything material changes. Deliberately, it should contain no passwords or account credentials — those belong in a properly secured arrangement, not in a document that will be read by several people you did not choose.

Succession law and inheritance tax are two different questions

Almost everything above concerns succession: who inherits, under whose law, and through which administrative process. That is a separate question from who taxes the estate, and conflating the two is the most common reason people believe they have solved a problem they have not touched.

The tests are different. Succession is determined largely by where an asset sits, as the situs section sets out. UK inheritance tax is charged by reference to the deceased's own connection to the UK, and applies to worldwide assets where that connection exists — which is why moving your money out of the UK does not, by itself, move it out of the UK IHT net. The two systems can point in opposite directions on the same asset, and frequently do.

A worked case shows why this matters. A UK national living in Spain who makes a Brussels IV election has changed which succession law governs the estate: UK law will apply, forced heirship will not bite, and the villa can be left as intended. Nothing about that election changes the tax position. Spain will still tax the Spanish assets under its own inheritance tax, which is charged on the beneficiary rather than the estate, and the UK may still charge IHT on the same villa. Our guide to inheritance tax on overseas assets sets out how that double exposure arises and where relief does and does not exist.

The practical implication is that these need to be planned together and by different specialists. A solicitor drafting wills is solving the succession problem. A tax adviser in each relevant jurisdiction is solving the other one. A plan that has had only one of those conversations is half finished, and the half that is missing is usually the expensive one.

Questions to put to a solicitor

• Does my existing will revoke anything I still want to rely on, and does it need a jurisdictional limitation clause?
• If I have made, or want to make, a Brussels IV election, is it drafted in terms that will actually be recognised where my property sits?
• Who are my executors, and can they realistically act — are they in the right country, willing, and aware they have been named?
• What will my family need to live on during the administration period, and where will that money come from?

That last question is the one most often left unasked, and it is the one that determines whether the delay described above is an inconvenience or a crisis.

Our related guides cover estate planning for expats, inheritance tax planning for expats and estate planning for international property investors.

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Getting your international estate in order is a one-time exercise that provides lasting peace of mind — for you and for your family. Global Investments can connect you with estate planning specialists across relevant jurisdictions.

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Succession law is complex and jurisdiction-specific. Contact us to discuss your international estate planning needs.