Legal tip 45. Probate and succession in Spain
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 @ 7:24 AM
Probate and Succession in Spain
The procedure ahead after a person’s death in order to administer his/her assets in Spain will vary depending on:
- Location of estate.
- Left a will (in Spain or in the foreign country) or not.
Having estate just in Spain (regardless nationality and legal residency) will drive the succession of the person to be regulated under Spanish Law. Therefore the “legitimas” (legal/obligatory heirs) will apply to the probate.
When we receive a petition for he administration of assets of a deceased foreign we start by establishing where he had his estate and if the deceased left a will in Spain.
In order to verify if he left a will in Spain and we proceed to the application for this information before the National Registry of Last wills. For doing so, we need a Death certificate. If the deceased died abroad, we would need the foreign death certificate to be translated into Spanish and apostilled with the Hague stamp.
The National Registry will provide information on the existence of the will, the Notary who authorized it and date of authorization. These data and our Power of Attorney to deal with the probate will be enough for us to retrieve a copy of the will from the corresponding Notary office.
The Deed of Testament in Spain will be valid title for us to perform distribution and adjudication of assets and proper registration to the heirs’ names in the corresponding Land Registry, before payment of corresponding inheritance taxes on the heirs´behalf.
If there is only a foreign will or the deceased died with no will expressed, we need to gather the following foreign documents, which will have to be translated and Hague apostilled:
- Death certificate
- Foreign will ( if existing)
- Grant of Representation or equivalent
- For those cases where the deceased left no will, and had estate in Spain and abroad, it is also necessary to grant a Certificate of Law, which is a document by a Lawyer which explains the Law regarding intestacy in the deceased’s country.
- If the deceased left no will but just had estate in Spain, Spanish Law of intestacy will apply to the succession.
With all these documents we will be able to pay the corresponding taxes and register the property under heirs´ names.
Zahara de los Atunes ( Cadiz) beach by Iman Drike