Do You Need a Spanish Will?

A will is what carries the choice of which country’s law governs your estate, under Article 22 of EU Regulation 650/2012. The UK government recommends that British nationals in Spain make a Spanish will. This guide sets out what the Codigo Civil does when no will exists, whether a UK or US will covers Spanish assets and what the notary charges.

Do You Need a Spanish Will?

Not necessarily. The UK government’s guidance recommends that British nationals with assets in Spain make a Spanish will to prevent additional problems and expenses for their heirs. That is a recommendation, not a universal legal requirement. Article 22 of EU Regulation 650/2012 puts any choice of which country’s law governs your estate inside the will itself.

The recommendation is the UK government’s own. Its guidance on planning for later life as a British person in Spain puts it in one line:

Make a Spanish will to help prevent additional problems and expenses for your heirs.

The same page tells the reader to say clearly in the will whether they want Spanish or UK inheritance law to apply, and to consider contacting an English-speaking lawyer in Spain to do it. Article 22 is the mechanism behind that instruction. You may choose the law of a state whose nationality you hold, at the time of the choice or at death, to govern your succession as a whole. The choice has to be made expressly, in a declaration in the form of a disposition of property upon death, or shown by the terms of the disposition itself, and it reaches the whole estate.

What Happens to Your Spanish Estate If You Don’t Have One?

The Codigo Civil decides, outside the six foral regions named further down. Its intestacy rules call the heirs in a fixed order, and a notary establishes who those heirs are before an estate can move.

• Descendants are called first. Article 930 gives the succession to the direct descending line.
• Then ascendants. Article 935 calls them in the absence of children and descendants.
• Then the surviving spouse. Article 944 gives the spouse the whole estate ahead of collateral relatives, unless they are legally or de facto separated.
• Then collaterals. Article 946 puts siblings and the children of siblings before more distant collateral relatives.

Intestacy also adds a step. A declaracion de herederos, the formal statement of who the heirs are, has run before a notary since Ley 15/2015, and the notary closes it no sooner than twenty business days after the initial request. A one-month objection period runs first where a notice has to be published in the BOE, and the twenty business days run from the end of it.

How Spanish inheritance tax works covers the tax on the same estate, and what happens during Spanish probate covers the administration after a death.

Can a UK or US Will Cover Your Spanish Assets?

Yes. Spain is party to the 1961 Hague Convention on the form of testamentary dispositions, which entered into force for Spain on 10 June 1988. A will’s form is valid if it complies with the internal law of the place where the testator made it, of the testator’s nationality when making it or at death, or of the testator’s domicile. Habitual residence works too, and for immovable property so does the place where the property sits.

The cost of relying on a foreign document lands at the tax filing. The Agencia Tributaria requires a traduccion jurada, a sworn translation, of any documentation issued abroad in a language other than Spanish and submitted with an inheritance tax self-assessment. Documentation issued by foreign officials or authorities has to carry the Hague Apostille alongside that sworn translation.

Do You Need a Lawyer to Make a Spanish Will?

No, the Codigo Civil’s own holographic-will route does not call for one. Articles 688 to 693 ask an adult to write the will out by hand, sign it and date it, and no lawyer appears in that requirement. What a Spain-qualified solicitor does is the drafting and the advice around it. That covers how the legitima, the reserved share the law fixes for close family, applies to yours, and how an Article 22 election has to be worded.

Advisors in Spain works with people who own property, a bank account or other assets in Spain and want a Spanish will drafted for those assets.

When Do You Need a Spanish Will? The Yes Cases

Each case below carries a sourced trigger.

• You want the law of your own nationality to govern your estate. Article 22 has the choice made expressly in a declaration in the form of a disposition of property upon death, or shown by the terms of the disposition itself, so the election lives inside a will.
• You are a British national with assets in Spain. The UK government’s guidance for that group recommends making a Spanish will.
• You have children and Spanish law would govern the succession. Codigo Civil articles 806 to 808 reserve two-thirds of the estate for children and descendants. One third is split equally between them, the testator may apply a second third as a mejora to favour one of them, and the final third is freely disposable.
• You would otherwise die intestate. The order above decides your heirs, and the estate needs the notarial declaracion de herederos first.
• You have already made a choice of law and want to change it. Article 22(4) requires that change to meet the formal requirements for revoking a will.

When Might You Not Need One? The No Cases

One situation takes you outside this guide and outside the help it points to: you have already sold everything you owned in Spain, and you hold no Spanish property, account or other asset.

The Codigo Civil articles above turn on who your relatives are and on the order in which the law calls them.

The other limit on this page is regional. Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarre, Galicia, Aragon and the Balearics each run their own forced-heirship rules under their own foral law. The two-thirds reserve quoted above is the Codigo Civil position, and it does not describe those six.

How Much Does It Cost to Make a Spanish Will?

It costs 30.05 euros per testator at the notary. That figure is the arancel notarial, the schedule of notarial charges set by Real Decreto 1426/1989, so the notary’s charge for a will is fixed by national decree. Authorised copies, and the note recording their issue, run at 3.01 euros per folio or part of one on top, so the length of the document sets that part of the bill.

That arancel is the notary’s own schedule. Get a quote in writing for the solicitor’s drafting and advice before any work starts.

Can You Make a Spanish Will Online?

No, the signing is not on the list. Article 17 ter of the Ley del Notariado has let a notary authorise certain acts by videoconference since 9 November 2023, and the article gives a closed lettered list of which ones. An ordinary notarial will is missing from that list. The one will-related item is letter h), wills made in a situation of declared epidemic, for as long as a confinement obligation lasts.

Letter k) leaves room for regulation to add further acts later, so article 17 ter describes the current position and leaves the door open. Article 688 requires a holographic will to be written out and signed by the testator’s own hand, so that route stays offline too.

Can You Make a Spanish Will Without a Lawyer?

Yes. The Codigo Civil permits a testamento olografo, a holographic will: articles 688 to 693 require an adult to write it by hand, sign it and state the year, month and day. A foreigner may write it in their own language. No notary takes part at the signing. Article 689 asks for it to be lodged with a notary within five years of the testator’s death, and article 690 gives whoever holds one ten days to present it once they learn of the death.

Your solicitor works through the material around the document: your legitima position, the wording of an Article 22 election, a will you already hold at home, and the foral-law question.