International probate: dealing with overseas assets, resealing and double tax

Why a UK grant of probate stops at the border

A grant of probate issued by HM Courts and Tribunals Service proves an executor's authority under the law of England and Wales, and that is exactly as far as it reaches. A Spanish land registry, a French bank or a broker in New York is under no obligation to accept it. Each country decides for itself how a dead person's assets are transferred, so an estate with anything abroad becomes, in practice, two or more parallel processes: the familiar UK probate for UK assets, and whatever the other country requires for the assets sitting there. This guide is general information for people planning ahead or administering an estate; it is not legal or financial advice, and cross-border estates are one of the areas where paying for proper advice earliest saves the most.

Roughly speaking, foreign jurisdictions fall into two camps. Many Commonwealth jurisdictions (Australian states, New Zealand and a long list of others) share the English probate tradition, and the Colonial Probates Act 1892 (extended in 1927) allows a grant made in one to be resealed in another: the foreign registry stamps the existing grant with its own seal and it takes local effect, without a second full application. Civil-law countries (Spain, France, Portugal, Italy and most of continental Europe) have no probate in the English sense at all. Succession there runs through a notary, who transfers the property using local documentation, typically wanting sealed and apostilled copies of the UK grant and will, sworn translations, and local tax clearance before anything moves.

That is why executor timelines stretch. UK probate alone currently averages weeks to months (our probate wait times index tracks the live figures), and a foreign process runs on its own clock afterwards or alongside. If you are weighing up whether to handle an estate like this yourself, our DIY vs solicitor probate calculator puts numbers on the trade-off, and the honest answer for most cross-border estates is that at least the foreign leg needs professional hands.

The multiple-wills trap: one revocation clause can sink the whole plan

Because a civil-law notary works far more smoothly from a local-language will drafted under local law, the standard planning advice for owners of overseas property is to run separate wills for separate jurisdictions: an English will covering UK assets, and a Spanish, French or other local will covering the property there. Done properly, each process then proceeds independently and neither waits for the other.

The trap is in the boilerplate. Almost every will opens by revoking all earlier wills. If your Spanish will says that, it revokes your English will. If you later update your English will and it says that, it revokes the Spanish one. The two documents can quietly cancel each other with every revision, and the failure only surfaces after death, when it is unfixable, potentially dropping one country's assets into intestacy. The fix is simple but must be deliberate: each will states that it applies only to assets in its own jurisdiction, and that its revocation clause is limited to previous wills so far as they deal with those assets. Whoever drafts either will needs to know the other exists, which is also a good reason to keep both drafters copied in whenever either document changes.

Forced heirship: when local law overrides your will

English law lets you leave your estate to whoever you like. Most civil-law systems do not: a reserved portion of the estate belongs to close family, usually children, by right. A UK will leaving the Spanish villa entirely to a second spouse can collide head-on with children's reserved shares under local law.

Destination	Default succession regime	Can a UK national's will opt out?
Spain	Forced heirship: a reserved share for children	Usually yes, by electing the law of nationality under the EU Succession Regulation in the will
France	Forced heirship: children's reserved portion	An election is possible under the EU rules, but French law has added protections for children, so specific advice is essential
Portugal	Reserved portion for spouse and descendants	Usually yes, via the same EU nationality-law election
UAE	Sharia distribution applies by default	Non-Muslims can generally have home-country law applied, including via registered wills regimes; local registration matters
Australia / New Zealand / Canada (common law)	Testamentary freedom, similar to England	No opt-out needed; resealing of grants is typically available

The EU Succession Regulation lets a person state in their will that the law of their nationality should govern their EU-situated estate, which for a British national generally restores English-style freedom over, say, a Spanish apartment. But the election has to be written into the will; silence means local default rules apply. This table is a general orientation, not a substitute for advice in the country concerned, and the interaction with local tax is a separate question again. Anyone living abroad or splitting the year between countries should start with our expats hub, which pulls the residence, will-drafting and tax threads together in one place.

UK inheritance tax now follows residence, not domicile

For decades the UK taxed worldwide estates by domicile, a notoriously sticky concept. That ended on 6 April 2025. Under GOV.UK's long-term UK resident rules, the test is now simply residence history: someone who was UK tax resident for at least 10 of the 20 tax years before death is a long-term UK resident, and their worldwide assets are within UK inheritance tax at the usual 40% above the allowances (£325,000 nil-rate band, frozen to 5 April 2031, plus up to £175,000 residence nil-rate band). Someone outside that test faces UK inheritance tax on UK-situated assets only.

Two consequences catch people out. First, the status has a tail: after leaving the UK, long-term resident status persists for between 3 and 10 years depending on how long you had lived here, so retiring to the Algarve does not lift worldwide UK inheritance tax exposure for years. Second, executors must report the foreign assets to HMRC on schedule IHT417 with the IHT400, valued in sterling at the date of death, even though the assets will be transferred through a foreign process. Expats and returning expats sit right on the edges of these rules; the expats hub covers the residence-tail arithmetic in more detail, and our inheritance tax pillar guide covers the allowances themselves.

Double taxation: two tax bills, one asset, and how relief works

The country where the asset sits will usually want its own succession or estate tax too, so the same villa can trigger both a foreign bill and UK inheritance tax. Relief stops this becoming a genuine double charge, in one of two ways set out in GOV.UK's double taxation relief guidance:

• Treaty relief. The UK has inheritance tax conventions with the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the USA, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, which allocate taxing rights between the two countries, plus older estate duty treaties with France, Italy, India and Pakistan that still operate under their own rules.
• Unilateral relief. For everywhere else (Spain and Portugal included), HMRC gives a credit for the overseas tax paid on an asset located in that country, capped at the UK inheritance tax attributable to the same asset. If the foreign tax is higher than the UK tax on that asset, the excess is not refunded.

A worked example: an estate with a Spanish apartment

Raymond, a retired engineer, lived in Kent all his life and spent winters in an apartment he owned outright near Alicante. He dies leaving his home (£450,000) to his daughter, £150,000 of savings, and the Spanish apartment, worth £220,000 at his death. Total estate: £820,000.

• UK tax position. Raymond was UK resident throughout, so he is a long-term UK resident and all £820,000 is in scope. With his £325,000 nil-rate band and the full £175,000 residence nil-rate band (home passing to his daughter), £500,000 is covered and £320,000 is taxable at 40%: £128,000. The apartment goes on IHT417.
• Spanish tax position. Spain levies its own succession tax on the apartment, charged on his daughter as the inheritor and varying by region and relationship. Suppose the Spanish bill works out at £18,000 equivalent.
• Double taxation relief. There is no UK-Spain inheritance tax treaty, so unilateral relief applies. The UK tax attributable to the apartment is broadly its share of the estate's IHT (£220,000 of £820,000, about £34,300). The £18,000 Spanish tax is below that cap, so HMRC credits it in full and the UK bill falls to £110,000.
• The paperwork legs. His executor applies for probate in England and Wales (application fee £526 for estates over £5,000, with extra sealed copies £2 each at the time of applying), then instructs a Spanish lawyer and notary to transfer the apartment using apostilled, translated copies of the grant and will, alongside the Spanish tax filing.

Notice the sequencing risk: the UK inheritance tax account cannot simply ignore the apartment while Spain deals with it, and the Spanish side cannot complete without its own tax clearance. Executors who treat the foreign asset as "someone else's problem" usually discover it holding up both estates at once. Our guides to how long probate takes and what probate costs cover the UK leg; the foreign leg is extra on both counts.

Getting ahead of it

If you own anything abroad, three questions decide most of the outcome: does each country's paperwork route exist for your assets (resealing, notarial transfer, or a fresh grant); does your will structure survive both legal systems without the revocation trap; and does your residence history put your worldwide estate inside UK inheritance tax. Business interests overseas add a further layer, since shares and trading assets bring their own valuation and relief questions on top of the cross-border ones. The probate pillar guide covers the domestic process end to end, and the expats hub is the right starting point if you live outside the UK or plan to.

Cross-border estates reward early, specific advice: a probate specialist who works with the country involved can usually tell you within one conversation whether resealing applies, whether you need a second will, and what the double tax position looks like. Getting that mapped while everyone is alive is a fraction of the cost of untangling it afterwards.