Tweet
Undecided UK and/or Spanish wills
Hi everyone,
I am in the process of writing a will but my “complex” personal circumstances and the fact that I want to “utilise” all rules at my disposal so my son can inherit my state paying as little tax as possible are delaying me from completing one.
Here it goes:
I am a dual citizen (hold British and Spanish passport) married to a Spanish citizen and we have a 17-year-old son also with dual citizenship (British and Spanish). We have been living in England for the last 22 years. We have a house where we live in England and a handful of bank accounts. In Spain we also have another property and another bank account. Both properties are in both our names. As I said, we have been working and living in England but my wife and I are still registered as living in our hometowns in Spain (“empadronados” in Spanish terminology). I mention this as it may be relevant in order to stablish our residency or domicile. I would also say that we dream of retiring in Spain so hopefully in 20 years time we will move to Spain.
There is something I need to confess too: both my wife and I agree that we have to stipulate particular details to avoid the sideways disinheritance trap and to protect from care costs (partly and without accounting depravation of assets).
I have been reading different literature and there are a few considerations/questions I need to make:
Regards
I am in the process of writing a will but my “complex” personal circumstances and the fact that I want to “utilise” all rules at my disposal so my son can inherit my state paying as little tax as possible are delaying me from completing one.
Here it goes:
I am a dual citizen (hold British and Spanish passport) married to a Spanish citizen and we have a 17-year-old son also with dual citizenship (British and Spanish). We have been living in England for the last 22 years. We have a house where we live in England and a handful of bank accounts. In Spain we also have another property and another bank account. Both properties are in both our names. As I said, we have been working and living in England but my wife and I are still registered as living in our hometowns in Spain (“empadronados” in Spanish terminology). I mention this as it may be relevant in order to stablish our residency or domicile. I would also say that we dream of retiring in Spain so hopefully in 20 years time we will move to Spain.
There is something I need to confess too: both my wife and I agree that we have to stipulate particular details to avoid the sideways disinheritance trap and to protect from care costs (partly and without accounting depravation of assets).
I have been reading different literature and there are a few considerations/questions I need to make:
- I believe I’ll be better off making two different wills: One in the UK to protect English assets and another one in Spain to protect Spanish.
- However, which one is written before seems important as they could invalidate each other.
- Also, do they have to explicitly state what country’s legislation are they going to follow?
- To protect my son for the sideways disinheritance trap, do we need to include a life interest trust? Which type?
Regards
