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One Will or two?

including wills and probate
stewamax
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One Will or two?

#345859

Postby stewamax » October 7th, 2020, 10:46 am

My #2 daughter has significant assets in the UK and in Germany but currently does not have a Will.
Should she have two Wills - one for each country - possibly prefixed by "this Will disposes of what I own in the UK ( / Germany) only" or something of that nature?
It must be a common situation for those with holiday homes in warmer climes.

I was thinking also of the court case over the distribution of the late Lord Lambton's (vastly ££greater!) estate where his son Ned was left the Tuscan villa (plus other UK assets) under good old English primogeniture but his daughters disputed their disposition on the grounds that Italian law gave each child an equal share. (OK - I know that the issue was more complex than that...)

JonE
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Re: One Will or two?

#345881

Postby JonE » October 7th, 2020, 12:00 pm

stewamax wrote:My #2 daughter has significant assets in the UK and in Germany but currently does not have a Will.
Should she have two Wills - one for each country - possibly prefixed by "this Will disposes of what I own in the UK ( / Germany) only" or something of that nature?
I'd suggest two Wills rather than an executor having to faff around having UK Will re-sealed in Germany and the delay that introduces by having to do things serially rather than in parallel. One may also wish to have some difference(s) in the executor(s) of each Will.

Where I live in EU has 'forced heirship' rules which apply to whole of estate if deceased domiciled here but apply only to local assets if domiciled elsewhere. I suspect this forced heirship might be due to influence of Napoleonic law so may not be found in Germany. It's possible (by virtue of EU Succession Regulation so applies also in Germany) for foreign nationals to specify in local Will (so intestacy doesn't provide the option) that the laws of one's nationality shall apply and that completely side-steps forced heirship and, I'd expect, any other related quirks in German law regarding succession.

Cheers!
Edit: forgot to say that this is definitely not a DIY project and I'd have thought her unlikely to find affordable expertise in either country that could fully handle both Wills in-house so two sets of fees probably seems inevitable.
Last edited by JonE on October 7th, 2020, 12:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

scrumpyjack
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Re: One Will or two?

#345883

Postby scrumpyjack » October 7th, 2020, 12:02 pm

You would presumably need to specify how IHT is allocated to the assets each country as UK law will charge IHT based on the total

stewamax
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Re: One Will or two?

#345904

Postby stewamax » October 7th, 2020, 1:46 pm

Although still healthily on my perch, I am trying to keep things as simple as possible for her in order that she does actually make a Will (or two)!

HMRC will normally allow unilateral relief if there is no double-taxation agreement extant. But there is a double-taxation agreement between the UK and Germany (the '2010 / 2015' agreement); whether this gives relief on IHT as I would wish I know not - it is one for the lawyers.
My daughter has dual nationality and lives, works and pays taxes in both countries so where she would be construed to be domiciled (and if that matters) I also know not.

Incidentally, all (non-specialist) material on Wills I read refer to one Will. But DAK is there is a reason in English law why different classes or collections of assets cannot be disposed of in several Wills (with, of course, the caveat that 'I revoke previous Wills' needs qualifying).

Lootman
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Re: One Will or two?

#345952

Postby Lootman » October 7th, 2020, 4:35 pm

stewamax wrote: all (non-specialist) material on Wills I read refer to one Will. But DAK is there is a reason in English law why different classes or collections of assets cannot be disposed of in several Wills (with, of course, the caveat that 'I revoke previous Wills' needs qualifying).

I do not believe that is true. For a while I had two Wills, one for UK assets and one for foreign assets, and my solicitor specifically told me that was fine under UK law, although he could not guarantee that every foreign country would recognise the same situation.

It was never put to the test of course, and those Wills have since been replaced with a UK-only Will covering everything. I would think that you really need to look at the other country and see what their rules are before deciding whether it is effective to have two Wills. But I cannot think of a reason why you cannot exclude a set of assets from your UK Will if you wish to.

As a simple example some countries allow you to hold all assets in trust for someone else. By definition those assets would sit outside probate regardless of the fact that you cannot do that with many UK assets.


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