Who Actually Inherits Your Estate When You Live Abroad?

June 2026

By Will Glyn

You sat down, made a will, named who gets what, and ticked “estate planning” off the list. Reasonable. In England, the United States and most of the common-law world, your will is very close to the final word — you can leave your money more or less wherever you like.

But in much of continental Europe, that quiet assumption stops being true. France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and a long list of other countries reserve a fixed slice of your estate for your children — and sometimes your spouse — whatever your will says. It’s called forced heirship, and most people only discover it exists when it’s far too late to plan around.

A quick caveat before we go further: I’m a financial adviser, not a lawyer or a tax adviser. Drafting a will and choosing the law that governs it is a job for a cross-border succession solicitor or notary, and I’d never pretend otherwise. But this sits so close to the financial plan — and trips up so many people who’ve moved abroad — that every expat should understand the shape of it. So this is the plain-English version, and where it touches tax or law, please take proper advice on your own situation.

The assumption that catches people out

Common-law countries run on testamentary freedom: your estate is yours to give away as you choose. (In England, dependants can still ask a court for reasonable provision, but there’s no automatic fixed share.) Civil-law countries take the opposite starting point. They treat a portion of your estate as belonging, by law, to your closest family — typically your children, and in some countries your spouse. You can’t disinherit them, and often you can’t even tilt the balance toward your spouse and away from the children the way you might at home. The French call it la réserve héréditaire, the Spanish la legítima, the Italians la legittima, the Portuguese a legítima. Different names, same idea: your wishes come second to a fixed family entitlement.

What forced heirship actually reserves

The reserved share is bigger than most people expect, and it varies country by country:

• France — One child is entitled to half your estate, two children to two-thirds between them, and three or more to three-quarters. Only what’s left — the “quotité disponible” — is yours to give freely.
• Spain — In much of the country up to two-thirds is reserved for children: a strict third shared equally, plus a “third for improvement” you can use to favour particular descendants. But the regions differ sharply — Catalonia reserves only a quarter.
• Italy — Between roughly a half and three-quarters is reserved for your spouse and children combined, depending on who survives you.
• Portugal — Between a half and two-thirds is reserved for a surviving spouse and descendants.

Put bluntly: depending on where you’ve settled, anywhere from a quarter to three-quarters of everything you own can be spoken for before your will is even read.

Brussels IV: the escape hatch most expats have never heard of

Here’s the part that genuinely surprises people, and it’s good news. Since 17th August 2015, an EU rule — the EU Succession Regulation, widely known as Brussels IV — has governed cross-border estates across most of the bloc. Its default is simple: the law of the country where you’re habitually resident when you die governs your whole estate. In France, that means French succession law — réserve and all — by default.

But Brussels IV also lets you choose. You can elect, expressly in your will, for the law of a country of your nationality to govern your succession instead. An English national living in France can choose English law — which has no forced heirship — and in principle direct their estate as they wish. The election even works for non-EU nationals: a South African resident in Spain can choose their home country’s law in the same way. It’s one of the most useful planning tools available to expats in Europe, and one of the least known.

Two important limits on scope: Brussels IV applies across the EU except Denmark and Ireland, which opted out, and the UK is now outside it entirely. So the country you live in matters as much as the passport you hold.

Why the election isn’t a magic wand

If choosing your home law sounds like a clean fix, it usually helps — but there are traps, and this is exactly where people get caught:

• France can claw it back — Since 1st November 2021, France has had a “compensatory levy”: if you choose a foreign law that has no reserved share and a child would lose out, and there’s a European connection, the notaire can invite your children to reclaim their French-law share out of any France-based assets. So in France, electing English law doesn’t simply switch the réserve off where French property is involved.
• It decides who inherits, not who’s taxed — Brussels IV governs succession law: who’s legally entitled to your estate. It does nothing about inheritance or succession tax, which each country still charges under its own rules based on where you live and where your assets sit. You can direct your estate to your spouse and still leave them a tax bill that better structuring would have softened.
• “Habitual residence” can be argued over — If you make no election, your heirs may end up disputing which country you were really resident in — an expensive, painful argument at the worst possible moment.
• Assets outside the EU follow their own rules — A holiday home in a non-EU country won’t be covered by your election.
• Trusts can misfire abroad — Many forced-heirship countries don’t treat trusts the way your home country does: some don’t recognise them, and even those that do may tax them unfavourably. A structure that works beautifully in the UK can create problems where you now live.

It isn’t only a European problem

The principle reaches well beyond Europe, even if the mechanics differ. The UAE shows how fast this can change: since February 2023, Sharia-based inheritance no longer applies to non-Muslims by default — a civil regime governs their estates instead, and non-Muslims can have their home country’s law apply, most cleanly by registering a will (through the DIFC or ADGM courts, Dubai Courts or Abu Dhabi’s non-Muslim wills register). The takeaway is the same wherever you’ve settled: the country you live in has a default plan for your estate, and it may not be the one you’d choose.

Where this bites hardest

Forced heirship causes the most damage in exactly the situations modern families are full of:

• Second marriages and blended families — You want to look after your current spouse, but the reserve routes a large share straight to children from an earlier relationship.
• Unmarried partners — Many systems protect children, and sometimes spouses, but give a long-term unmarried partner little or nothing.
• One big illiquid asset — If most of your wealth is the family home, heirs entitled to a share can force its sale to release their money.
• Wanting to divide unequally — If one child needs more help than another, a strict equal-share rule can stop you arranging it.

Where the financial plan and the legal plan have to meet

The will and the choice-of-law clause belong to your solicitor or notary. But whether your wishes actually survive contact with reality depends heavily on how your money is arranged — and that’s my world. It means making sure there’s enough liquidity to settle succession taxes without anyone being forced to sell the house; making sure life cover is written so it provides for the people a reserve might otherwise sideline; making sure your pensions, investment structures and any policies are recognised and tax-efficient in the country you actually live in; and making sure the legal documents and the financial structures tell the same story rather than quietly working against each other.

That coordination is the bit that’s so often missed. People get a beautifully drafted will in one country and a portfolio built in another, and nobody checks that the two fit together.

If you don’t already have a cross-border succession specialist, I’m very happy to introduce you to one I trust. And once your wishes are clear, I’ll make sure your financial plan is built around them — not left to a default set by the country you happen to live in. If it’s been more than a few years since anyone looked at how your estate is structured, book a call with me and we’ll talk it through.

This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax or financial advice. Succession and inheritance tax rules vary considerably between countries and according to your personal circumstances, and they change over time. Please take advice specific to your situation before acting.

Will is an Independent Financial Adviser with over a decade of experience helping expats make the most of their international status.