Your life is in two countries. Could your family piece it together from one?

When someone dies with assets in one country, the family deals with one legal system. When someone dies with assets in two, the family deals with both, usually in a language only the deceased spoke comfortably.

The practical reality for a UK family dealing with a parent's affairs in Spain, or a family in Spain untangling UK accounts: nobody knows the NIE number, or where the residencia card is. The escritura for the apartment is in a drawer in another country. The UK pension provider needs documents the Spanish notary holds, and the Spanish bank needs documents the UK solicitor holds. Utility contracts, the gestor's contact details, the non-resident tax filings, the catastral reference. None of it written down anywhere your family could find.

Domestic estates take months. Cross-border estates routinely take years, and the difference is almost never the law. It is whether anyone could find anything.

The UK side. Will and where the original is held, pensions (including the ones from old employers), bank and investment accounts, life policies, property deeds, lasting powers of attorney, National Insurance number.

The other side. NIE and residencia details, the escritura, foreign bank accounts, the gestor and notary contact details, local insurance, non-resident tax references, utility and community contracts.

The connective tissue. Which will covers what. Who the executors are in each country. Where the originals live. The people to call, in the right order.

Every document is encrypted with its own key before storage. Reminders catch expiring passports, residencia renewals and policy dates, so the vault stays current.

Your family may be in the UK while your affairs are in Spain, or the other way round. Glenvault's succession rules work the same from anywhere: you choose who can request access, and what happens if you stop responding to check-ins. Requests are logged, your contacts are notified, and there is a waiting period during which you can cancel. Nothing is released silently, and nobody needs to be in the same country as your paperwork, or as each other.

You can also name a professional, such as your UK solicitor or your gestor, as a trusted contact, so your family's first call is to someone who already knows the plan.

Whether you need one will or two for assets in two countries depends on your situation, and it is a question for a qualified cross-border solicitor, not for us. What we can say from experience: whichever answer is right for you, your family still needs to know both wills exist, where the originals are, and which assets each one covers.

That is the part Glenvault solves. The vault holds the map, whoever drew it.

Glenvault is a trading name of Malden Ltd, registered in England and Wales (No. 11672272), ICO registration ZC165459. Data is stored in the United Kingdom and encrypted per document before storage. Our security approach is documented in plain English at glenvault.com/security.

My family doesn't speak Spanish. Does that matter?

The vault holds your documents in whatever language they are in, alongside your own notes explaining what each one is and who to contact about it. Those notes, written by you in plain English, are often the most valuable thing in the vault.

Can my UK solicitor and my gestor both be contacts?

Yes. You can name multiple trusted contacts and requesters, in any country.

Is my data stored in the UK or the EU?

In the United Kingdom, encrypted per document. The UK and EU each formally recognise the other's data protection standards.

What does it cost?

There is a free tier for your first documents, and low-cost paid plans above that, listed on our pricing page.

What happens to the vault if Glenvault shuts down?

You are never locked in. Every vault can be exported at any time as a standard .zip that opens on any computer, without Glenvault. If we ever had to close the service, we would give advance notice and keep that export available throughout, so nothing depends on us being here.