Dying in Spain while owning UK property: what your estate faces

A couple retire to Andalusia. They keep the family home in Surrey, rented out, and hold a brokerage account with a London firm. When one of them dies, their adult children assume the English solicitor will handle everything as normal. They are wrong. The moment habitual residence shifted to Spain, the legal ground beneath that Surrey house became far less certain.

Cross-border succession is genuinely complicated, and the complication is not theoretical. It produces delays measured in years, tax bills in both countries, and family disputes that a little preparation would have prevented entirely.

Two systems, one estate

England and Wales applies the lex situs rule to immovable property: the law of the country where the land sits governs how it passes on death. Your Surrey house is therefore subject to English succession law regardless of where you were living when you died. English law allows you to leave property to whomever you choose, subject to the Inheritance Act 1975 if dependants are left without reasonable provision.

Spain takes a different starting point. EU Succession Regulation 650/2012, known as Brussels IV, provides that the law of the country of your habitual residence at death governs your entire estate by default, including immovable property abroad. For a resident of Spain, that means Spanish law applies unless you make an election. Spanish succession law contains legítimas, forced heirship rules that reserve a substantial share of the estate for children and, in some circumstances, a surviving spouse. Those rules can conflict sharply with an English will that leaves everything to one child or to a charitable foundation.

Brussels IV allows you to elect, in your will, for the law of your nationality to govern your succession instead. A British national living in Spain can therefore elect for English law to apply to their worldwide estate. The election must be express and appear in a valid will. The practical effect is that English freedom of testation governs the estate, sidestepping the Spanish legítimas. This is often the right choice for British nationals, but it is not automatic, and it requires a will drafted with the regulation in mind, not simply a standard English will dusted off from fifteen years ago.

One further complication: the United Kingdom did not adopt Brussels IV. English courts apply their own conflict-of-laws rules, not the regulation. A Spanish grant of probate over an English property is not automatically recognised. The family will generally need a separate English grant of representation to deal with the Surrey house and the London brokerage account. That means two probate processes, two sets of professional fees, and two sets of timescales running in parallel.

Inheritance tax in both countries

HMRC charges inheritance tax on the worldwide estate of anyone domiciled in the United Kingdom at death. Domicile is a technical legal concept, distinct from residence or nationality, and many people who have lived in Spain for years remain UK-domiciled in HMRC's view. If you are UK-domiciled, the Surrey house, the Spanish villa, the brokerage account and everything else falls into charge at the standard rate above the available nil-rate bands. If you have acquired a Spanish domicile, HMRC's reach narrows, but the Surrey house, as UK-situated property, remains within scope regardless.

Spain levies Impuesto sobre Sucesiones y Donaciones, succession and gift tax, administered at the regional level. Rates and allowances vary significantly between autonomous communities, and some regions are far more generous than others. Where the deceased was resident in Spain, the tax applies to assets received by heirs wherever those assets are situated. This creates the real possibility of the same asset being taxed in both countries. The UK-Spain double taxation convention on estates provides some relief, but it does not eliminate double exposure, and it requires careful professional navigation to apply correctly.

Document quality matters enormously in this context. Spanish notaries and tax authorities require certified translations, apostilles, and evidence of asset ownership going back further than most families expect. An English land registry title, a grant of probate, a share certificate, a pension nomination form, a marriage certificate from forty years ago: all of these must be located, authenticated, and presented within deadlines that can be unforgiving. Families who cannot find these documents do not fail administratively. They lose money, sometimes significant amounts, because valuations cannot be properly evidenced or reliefs properly claimed.

The starting point for any British national living in Spain, or considering doing so, is a properly drafted will that addresses the Brussels IV election explicitly, ideally supported by a Spanish will dealing with Spanish-situated assets and an English will dealing with English assets. Beyond the wills, the question is whether the supporting record exists: property deeds, financial account statements, pension documents, insurance policies, corporate records if a business is involved. These should be held somewhere that the right people can actually reach them when the time comes, without having to search through filing cabinets or wait for a solicitor's office to open.

Glenvault is built precisely for families in this position. You can store and organise every document your executors will need, across both jurisdictions, and share controlled access with the people who will carry out your wishes. Start at glenvault.com/signup.