Do you actually need a Spanish will?
A great many British owners of Spanish property are sold one and do not need it. The first thing we do is tell you which you are.
The honest version
If you live in Britain, own a holiday flat in Spain, and have a straightforward English or Scottish will that covers your worldwide estate, that will usually reaches the Spanish property perfectly well. Spain applies the EU Succession Regulation, under which the law of your habitual residence governs your succession, and your habitual residence is here.
What a Spanish will buys you in that situation is not validity. It is speed and cost at the other end. Without one, your heirs will have to have your UK will translated, apostilled, and often supported by a sworn statement of English or Scottish law before a Spanish notary will act on it. That is weeks of work and several hundred pounds, paid by them, at the worst possible moment.
Where a Spanish will earns its keep is if you are thinking of moving to Spain, if you spend more of the year there than here, if you hold more than one nationality, or if your family arrangements are anything other than simple.
What it cannot do, whatever anyone tells you
A Spanish will must be signed by you, in person, before a Spanish notary. Spanish law treats making a will as a strictly personal act: it cannot be delegated to an attorney or a representative. If a firm offers to execute your Spanish will under a power of attorney, they are wrong, and the document would be worthless to the people it is meant to protect.
So there are two honest routes, and we will tell you which fits.
- You are going out anyway. We draft the will, agree it with you in English, and book the notary near the property for your next trip. You sign, it is registered centrally, and it is done. £295, or £450 for a couple.
- You are not going out. We draft the governing-law clause and the wording your own solicitor needs, so your English or Scottish will does the job properly, and we say what your heirs will need to produce in Spain. Priced as advice, usually well under the cost of a Spanish will.
The clause that actually matters
The EU Succession Regulation lets you choose the law of your nationality to govern your whole succession. For a British national resident in Britain, that choice mostly guards against a future move: if you retire to Spain later, it is what stops Spanish forced-heirship rules reaching your estate then.
One trap worth naming. "The law of my nationality" is not a complete answer for a British testator, because the United Kingdom has three legal systems and no single law of succession. The clause has to identify England and Wales, or Scotland, or Northern Ireland. A clause that does not is an argument waiting to happen, and we see them regularly in wills drafted by people who have never had to put one in front of a Spanish notary.