Multi-Jurisdiction Wills and Probate

A wealthy family almost always lives across several jurisdictions at once: an apartment in one country, a brokerage account in another, an operating business in a third. Succession to such assets answers to several laws at the same time, and each sets its own requirements for the will, for tax, and for the transfer procedure. A will that works flawlessly at home is often unrecognised or useless abroad without local validation. That is why succession planning in an international family becomes a discipline of its own, with its own rules.

Concept

When a family's assets are scattered across countries, a single will rarely covers everything correctly. Each legal system has its own view of the form of a will, of the reserved share, of tax, and of the transfer procedure itself. Which law governs the succession is decided by the conflict-of-laws rules of the country where the estate is opened; the deceased's nationality matters less here than people tend to think (see applicable law and domicile, residence and nationality). That is why wealthy families usually execute a coordinated set of several wills — one for each key jurisdiction.

Probate: Why It Takes So Long

In common-law countries an estate passes through probate — the court's official validation of the will and the appointment of an executor. Without the court-issued grant, the executor cannot access accounts or deal with foreign real estate: the procedure runs from several months to several years, especially when a foreign element is involved. Civil-law countries have no separate probate — assets pass to the heirs by operation of law and a notary handles the paperwork, but there too foreign documents require an apostille and a translation. Where a grant has already been obtained in one Commonwealth country, another will often simply reseal it under the Colonial Probates Act 1892 rather than run the procedure afresh.

Multiple Wills and Their Trap

Separate wills — one per country — speed up local probate and accommodate local requirements of form and execution. Here lies a classic mistake: a new will with a blanket clause revoking "all previous" wills can accidentally nullify a valid will from another country, leaving the heirs there without a document. The date and order of signing also need to be coordinated, so that a later will does not override an earlier one under local rules.

Form and Recognition

Whether a country recognises a will drawn up abroad is decided by the Hague Convention on the Conflicts of Laws Relating to the Form of Testamentary Dispositions (5 October 1961) and by local rules. The Convention rests on the principle of favor validitatis: a will is valid in form if it complies with the law of at least one of the connected jurisdictions — the place of execution, or the testator's nationality, domicile or habitual residence, and for real estate also the place where it is located. The Convention has more than forty parties. Notarial and common-law wills follow different formalities; an apostille and a sworn translation are almost always required in cross-border succession. A similar recognition logic applies to trusts — through the 1985 Hague Convention; see recognition of foreign trusts.

Which Law Governs the Succession

By default, succession is governed by the law of the country where the deceased had their habitual residence at the moment of death. In the European Union this is set out in the Brussels IV regulation (EU Regulation No 650/2012), which applies to estates opened on or after 17 August 2015. The regulation lets a testator choose, in advance and in the will, the law of their country of nationality, and so fix the rules the succession will follow, including the reserved share. A detailed analysis of the conflict-of-laws rules is in the article on applicable law.

Brussels IV applies in every EU country except Denmark and Ireland; the United Kingdom never took part in it and, after Brexit, remains a third country. The regulation's main practical instrument is the European Certificate of Succession: a single document recognised in all participating states that spares heirs from proving their status separately in each of them. Outside the EU there is no universal equivalent, so a set of wills combined with local procedures remains the main mechanism.

The UAE is a vivid example of such a local procedure. By default Sharia applies to the assets in the wording of Decree-Law 41/2022, the bank freezes the accounts until a court order issues, and the Emirates do not recognise a surviving co-owner's right of survivorship; a testator's wishes are expressed by registering a will with the DIFC Wills Service or with the ADJD, and those two routes differ in cost and in the assets they reach. How they compare, what happens to guardianship of minor children, and how the Emirati document joins the rest of the set is covered in inheritance in the UAE.

Real Estate and Taxes in Each Country

Real estate is almost everywhere inherited under the law of its location (lex rei sitae), whatever law governs the rest of the estate — which is why foreign real estate usually calls for a separate local will. Large movables behave differently: the situs of a jet, a yacht or a collection follows wherever the thing physically is, which by the date of death may be a country no will covers. Tax, too, is computed under local rules: the US estate tax reaches a non-resident's US-situs assets with a tax-free threshold of just USD 60,000. Rates and thresholds vary widely between countries — a comparison is gathered in the inheritance tax map.

Coordinating the Set: Probate and Anti-Revocation Country by Country

Several wills working together behave like one instrument only if someone coordinates them. The coordination checklist that decides real cases:

1. Scope and revocation. Each will names the assets and the country it covers, and revokes only earlier wills "in respect of" those assets. A blanket revocation in the newest document quietly kills the rest.
2. Choice of law. Inside the EU (all but Denmark and Ireland), Regulation 650/2012 lets you choose the law of your nationality for the whole succession (Art. 22); without a choice, the law of habitual residence governs (Art. 21), with a narrow escape for a manifestly closer connection. The choice is written into the will and works years ahead.
3. Who administers where. Common-law countries appoint an executor through probate; civil-law countries often pass assets to heirs directly through a notarial route. The European Certificate of Succession bridges the two inside the EU; outside it, each country is dealt with on its own procedure.
4. Real estate stays local. Registers follow the law of the property's location (lex rei sitae); a foreign grant or certificate usually still needs a local step before the land register moves.
5. Taxes stay national. Regulation 650/2012 does not touch revenue matters: inheritance or estate tax is computed and collected by each country under its own law, whatever the wills say.

What Bypasses Probate

Part of the estate can be taken out of probate in advance. Joint tenancy with right of survivorship passes to the surviving co-owner automatically; named beneficiaries under life insurance policies and on accounts (payable-on-death and transfer-on-death arrangements) receive the assets directly, bypassing the court. The same effect comes from trusts and foundations to which property was transferred during life: formally it no longer forms part of the estate. The more that passes through such channels, the more easily and quickly the wills themselves do their work.