Spanish Wills for Expats — Drafted, Registered
and Protected Under the Right Law

If you own anything in Spain — a home, a holiday apartment, a plot of land, a Spanish bank account, a share in a Spanish company, even a car — you need a Spanish will. The usual assumption expats bring with them from the UK, the US, Ireland or elsewhere is that a will drafted at home covers everything, everywhere. It doesn't. Your home-country will is valid in Spain, but Spain has its own succession system, its own notaries, its own tax calendar, and its own Land Registry. When you die without a Spanish will, your family inherits all of that friction.

A Spanish will fixes the friction. It's a short, structured document signed before a Spanish notary and registered with the Registro Central de Últimas Voluntades — the central wills registry in Madrid. It names who inherits your Spanish assets. It elects the national law you want to govern the succession. It sits alongside your UK or US will rather than replacing it. And when the time comes, your family walks into a Spanish notary with a copy of the will and a death certificate, and things move — rather than spending six to twelve months translating a foreign probate grant, sending apostilled documents between countries, and paying for every step twice.

Who this page is for

This is the hub page for every Spanish will service we provide. We've written it for anyone in the English-speaking expat community who needs clarity on how a Spanish will works, why it matters, what it costs to get wrong, and what the full range of options looks like. Whether you're a British retiree on the Costa Blanca, an American remote worker in Valencia, an Irish family with a holiday home in Andalusia, or a Canadian couple looking at residency in Murcia, this is where to start.

If you already know the specific service you need — mirror wills for a couple, an updated will after a divorce or remarriage, a living will (advance directive), or a Spanish power of attorney — scroll down to the services grid and click through. If you're earlier in the process, keep reading. The next sections explain exactly how a Spanish will works, when you need one, and what the cost of not having one actually looks like.

What a Spanish will does (and what it doesn't)

A Spanish will is a succession instrument. Its job is to tell the Spanish system who inherits which of your Spanish assets, and to state the national law that should govern that succession. It does not create a trust. It does not avoid Spanish inheritance tax by itself (though good drafting can materially reduce the bill by allowing the right regional reliefs to be claimed). It does not replace a living will. It does not pass on your foreign assets — those still run through your home-country will and your home-country probate.

That limitation is actually the design. A well-drafted Spanish will is deliberately narrow. It covers your Spanish estate and only your Spanish estate, and it expressly leaves everything else to your home-country will. The two wills run in parallel: your UK or US executor handles the home estate, our team handles the Spanish estate, nothing collides, nothing contradicts. Where it goes wrong is when people use a "global" will drafted at home and try to apply it in Spain — or when people draft a Spanish will that accidentally revokes their entire prior will. We see both regularly.

The role of Brussels IV — and why it matters for you

The EU Succession Regulation (commonly called Brussels IV or, more properly, Regulation 650/2012) changed how cross-border succession works in Spain from August 2015 onwards. The default rule is that the law of your habitual residence at death governs your succession. If you're a British citizen who's been living in Málaga for a decade, that default would mean Spanish succession law applies — including Spanish forced heirship, the legítima, which reserves compulsory shares for your children whether you wanted them to inherit or not.

Brussels IV lets you override that. You can elect the law of your nationality to govern your succession instead. For a British national that means English and Welsh succession law (or Scots or Northern Irish as appropriate), which preserves your freedom to leave your estate to whoever you want. For an American national it means the law of your US state of nationality. That election has to be made in writing. The cleanest place to make it is in a Spanish will. Without that election, we've seen otherwise clear estates end up in Spanish court because a child from a first marriage challenged a will that wanted to favour the second spouse. Brussels IV is the single most important clause in an expat Spanish will, and it's also the one most commonly missing from DIY versions.

If you take nothing else from this page: the Brussels IV choice-of-law election is the reason a properly drafted Spanish will is worth many times what it costs. It is what gives an English or American or Irish testator the freedom to distribute their Spanish assets the way they'd distribute their English or American or Irish ones.

The three Spanish will types (and why you want the middle one)

Spanish law recognises three types of will, and it's worth understanding the differences because the wrong choice creates problems that only surface after death — when no one can fix them.

The open or "notary" will (testamento abierto). This is the standard. You sign before a Spanish notary, the notary reads the will back to you, confirms you understand and intend it, and it's filed in the notary's protocol and registered with the central registry in Madrid. It's the fastest will to execute after death because its validity and authenticity are established the moment you sign. This is the will we draft for 95% of clients. Unless you have a very unusual reason to do otherwise, this is what you want.

The closed or "sealed" will (testamento cerrado). You draft the will privately, seal it in an envelope, present it to the notary who certifies the envelope without reading the contents. Rarely used today. The risk is that the unread document turns out to have drafting problems that can't be corrected.

The handwritten or "holographic" will (testamento ológrafo). Written entirely in your own hand, dated, and signed. No notary involved during your lifetime. Legally valid, but practically a disaster: after death it has to be judicially authenticated, which means court proceedings that routinely take eight to eighteen months and are frequently contested. Whatever you saved on notary fees in your lifetime, your family will pay back several times over. We strongly advise against holographic wills in virtually every situation.

What the process actually looks like

Drafting a Spanish will with us is one of the simplest pieces of legal work you'll do in Spain, and one of the most useful. Most clients go from first consultation to registered will in two to three weeks. Here is exactly how it unfolds.

1. The initial consultation

A video call, usually forty-five minutes to an hour. We map your Spanish assets (property, bank accounts, vehicles, business interests), your family structure (spouse or partner, children including from previous relationships, any dependants), your home-country will if one already exists, and your preferences on who inherits what. If there is anything unusual — stepchildren, a gifted property to one child, a business share, an asset you intend to sell soon — we flag the treatment now. By the end of the call, we have everything we need to draft.

2. First draft and review

We prepare a draft in Spanish with an English translation column, so you can read every single clause in both languages. We send it with a commentary note explaining the choices: why the Brussels IV election looks the way it does, why we've phrased the substitute beneficiary clause the way we have, why we've split the residuary estate this way rather than that way. You review, come back with any changes, we iterate until you're entirely comfortable.

3. The notary signing

Short and calm. You attend a Spanish notary (we arrange the appointment near your home or your Spanish property). We attend with you. The notary reads the will aloud, confirms you understand and intend it, you sign. The whole appointment takes around thirty minutes. The notary keeps the original in their protocol.

4. Registration with Madrid

The notary transmits the details of the will to the Registro General de Actos de Última Voluntad in Madrid within a few days of signing. This is the central registry that every Spanish notary consults after a death to determine whether a will exists. You receive a certified copy of the will (the copia autorizada) which you can keep at home or in a safe. You're done.

What it costs — and what affects the cost

Our own fee for drafting a Spanish will is fixed, quoted up front after the first call, and reflects the complexity of the estate rather than an hourly timer. A single will for an individual with straightforward Spanish assets sits at one price; a mirror-will package for a couple with matched wills sits at another; a more complex estate with business assets, stepchildren, or non-standard structures needs a specific quote. We'll always tell you the total before work starts, and we don't add charges after the fact.

On top of our fee there are notary fees and registration fees, which are set by Spanish tariff and are modest relative to what a will achieves. We itemise them in the quote so there are no surprises on the day. For context: for the vast majority of expats, the full cost of drafting and registering a Spanish will is a small fraction of what the family would save in probate time, tax reliefs claimed on time, and professional fees avoided later.

What pushes the cost up

• Multiple jurisdictions. A will that needs to coordinate with an existing UK or US will, or with a trust structure at home, is more complex to draft well.
• Blended family structures. Stepchildren, second marriages and estranged children require more careful substitute-beneficiary drafting.
• Business assets. Shares in a Spanish SL, ownership in an autónomo practice, or a cross-border company position all need bespoke clauses.
• Non-Brussels IV nationalities. Certain citizenships require tailored analysis around whether a Brussels IV election will be recognised by the national jurisdiction.