Has your parent left his/her Spanish estate to his second wife /husband and left you out of his Spanish estate?. You may be able to make a claim for 2/3rds of the estate.(reduced by the value of the life possession of 1/3 of the estate which depends on the age of the widow/widower)
Many people in the u.k. are not aware that Spanish Inheritance rules are very different from the ones in the u.k.
In the u.k. you can leave your estate to basically anyone with a lot of people leaving their estate to their spouse.
Spanish Inheritance laws obligates the testators to leave at least 2/3 of their estate directly to their children.
Over the last 30 years it has generally been accepted that a will made by an English person by which they leave their Spanish assets to their spouse is accepted and probate has been allowed to sale through.
The fact of the matter is that even though this was accepted on the surface (at probate level) it has become more frequent for children to dispute probate using the Spanish courts on the basis that they considered it should have been Spanish law that governed how their parent could distribute the estate. The possibilities of the claim depended on various circumstances that can be discussed with barristers like ourselves in advance allowing for the cases to only be presented when there is a good chance of success. In any case the court case would be the last resource as a negotiated solution is always the initial intention.
A new European Directive has tried to put an end to the uncertainties. Directive 650/2012 came in to force on the 17th of 2015 . The new Directive will allow couples to leave everything to their spouse withoght the risk of a claim by the children in the future as long as they state specifically on the will (comforting to the directive) that they wish u.k law to apply to the distribution of their estate. The other side of the coin is that the directive says that if that clause is not in the will the law applicable will be the law of last residence making the claims much easier then in the past if the deceased was resident in Spain.
Basically the new scenario regarding claims by children in relation to their parents estate is now:
Has your father or mother deceased in Spain before the 17th of August of 2015 and left you out of his/her Spanish will?
If we can prove that Spanish law was applicable to the distribution of your father/mothers estate (which will depend of various circumstances that we would need to discuss) you and any other of his children will be able to claim 2/3rds of your mother or fathers estate as before.
Has your mother or father deceased in Spain after the 17th of August of 2015 and left you out of his Spanish will ?
If the will does not establish clearly that he wished u.k. law to govern how his estate could be distributed then if we can prove he was a Spanish resident at the time of death then we have an excellent case but it is important to act quickly. If the clause was not in but your parent´s spouse inherited on the basis of declaring your parent was resident in the u.k. the only ground for a claim would be if we could prove that your parent was in reality resident in Spain. Speed is of an essence. The sooner you hire a solicitor to officially contact your parent´s spouse solicitor and the notary who will handle the probate the less change of them letting the case through .
Why choose Michael Davies to make the claim for you?
- Michael Davies has been handling Spanish inheritance cases for over 20 years .
- We are experts in everything surrounding Spanish inheritance cases.
- We will sit down with you to discuss expectations , timescales and fees with no obligation to yourself before we start on your case. We will back up our meeting with a proposal in writing.
- We will be absolutely upfront about the fees and the timescale.
- We will always build the case with the intention of negotiating an out of court settlement before presenting to the courts.
- In some cases we can offer a no win no fee .
- We do not provide a below the market quote for the work and then surprise our clients with fees for the extra items . ( where possible we provide a quote for all items from the beginning and if this is not possible we explain the variables ).