Do I Need a Spanish Will? What Foreign Property Owners Should Know

If you own a property in Spain, or you are about to buy one, here is the short answer. No law forces you to make a Spanish will. Your heirs can still inherit without one. But in our experience the process without a Spanish will is slower, more expensive and much more confusing, and all of that lands on your family at the worst possible moment.

So, a bit about who is answering this question. My name is Daniel Bertomeu and I work as a tax advisor alongside my father Juan Bertomeu, a lawyer in Spain since 1991, ICALI #4643. Our offices are in Moraira and Dénia, on the Costa Blanca, and we work almost exclusively with non-residents and foreigners who own property in Spain. Wills for foreign owners are, honestly, one of the most common things that cross our desk.

I also recorded a video on this exact question. If you would rather hear it from me directly, I walk through the whole thing on camera here. This article goes deeper than the video, especially on the tax side, so let me explain it properly.

What a Spanish will actually is

A Spanish will, for a non-resident, is a will signed before a Spanish notary that covers only your assets in Spain. Your house in Moraira, your bank account in Dénia, your car. It does not touch your estate back home. Your home-country will keeps governing everything outside Spain.

The two documents are meant to work together, and this is the part people get wrong when they do it alone. A badly drafted new will can accidentally revoke an older one. So the Spanish will has to be written so it is limited to the Spanish estate and aligned with whatever you already signed at home. That coordination is the actual job. The signature at the notary is the easy part.

Now, why bother with a separate Spanish document at all? Because when someone dies, the Spanish property cannot simply change hands. There is a formal succession process in Spain, with its own paperwork, its own tax filings and its own deadlines. A Spanish will means the Spanish part of your estate is already organised, in Spanish, in a format every notary and registry here recognises. Without it, your heirs start that process with certified translations, legalisations and two legal systems running at once.

You can choose which law applies to your estate

This is the point most owners have never heard of, and it is probably the strongest reason to plan. Under Regulation (EU) 650/2012, the default rule is that your succession is governed by the law of your habitual residence at the moment you die (article 21). But article 22 lets you do something better. You can state in your will that you choose the law of your nationality to govern your entire succession.

Why does that matter? Well, Spanish succession law has forced heirship rules. Certain relatives are entitled to a share of your estate whether you like it or not. English law, for example, gives you much more freedom to leave your assets to whoever you want. By making the choice of law inside your will, a British owner can keep that freedom instead of falling by default into rules he never chose. And the regulation applies universally, so the law you pick can be the law of a country outside the EU, like the UK.

One honest warning, though, because this clause is not a magic trick. For British nationals there is a technical problem called renvoi. English law can send the question of Spanish real estate back to Spanish law, and that bounce can undermine the effect of choosing English law for your Spanish property. It does not make the choice useless, but it means the clause has to be drafted by someone who knows this trap exists. This is exactly the kind of thing we check before you sign anything.

What happens when there is no Spanish will

Let me give you a real example, because this is not theory for us. A while ago my father helped a German widow. Her husband passed away. They owned a property in Spain, other assets in Germany, and there was no Spanish will and no plan. The family had to deal with two legal systems at once, provide certified translations and legalisations, face the Spanish inheritance tax deadlines, and wait before the property could be fully transferred and sold.

My father solved the case, and he actually travelled from Spain to Germany to sit with her, because she was completely overwhelmed. And honestly, I do not blame her. They were a couple over 80 years old. But the conclusion is simple. With a clear Spanish will, most of that pain would never have existed.

And about those deadlines, understand one thing. The clocks in a Spanish inheritance start running on the day of death, not on the day your family feels ready. To give you one concrete example, the municipal capital gains tax on inherited property, the plusvalía municipal, has a filing window of six months from the death, extendable to twelve months on request (article 110.2 of the Spanish local tax law, TRLRHL). Grief and paperwork do not wait for each other in Spain. Planning in advance is how you protect your family from doing both at once.

The inheritance tax side, and the 99% relief in the Valencia region

Okay, but Daniel, how bad is Spanish inheritance tax really? Well, for most families we see in this region, much less bad than people fear, if things are done correctly. In the Valencian Community there is a 99% relief on the inheritance tax bill for close family, meaning spouse, children and other descendants, and parents and other ascendants (groups I and II). The current 99% relief was brought back by Ley 6/2023 and applies to deaths from 28 May 2023 onwards.

Let me show you what 99% means with simple numbers. If the calculated inheritance tax bill for your wife or your son came out at 20,000 euros, the relief brings the actual payment down to 200 euros. Whatever the computed bill is, close family pays roughly one percent of it. Brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces are a different story. Their relief in the Valencia region is only 25% for deaths from 1 June 2026, rising to 50% from 1 June 2027.

Now, three details that matter a lot for non-residents, and that almost nobody explains. First, the relief only covers assets that are properly declared in a tax return filed in time. File late after the tax office comes asking and you can lose it. Second, for inheritances you do not need to sign anything in a Spanish public deed to get the 99%. That requirement exists for lifetime gifts, not for successions. Third, having your property in Moraira does not automatically give you the Valencian rules. When the deceased was a non-resident, the applicable regional rules are those of the region where the greater value of the Spanish estate sits. A flat in Dénia worth 300,000 euros plus a villa in Marbella worth 900,000 euros means Andalusian rules, not Valencian ones.

And one more practical point. Non-resident heirs do not file this tax with the Valencian tax agency. The return, Modelo 650, goes to the Spanish state tax agency, the AEAT. Different office, same deadlines. This is precisely why the will and the inheritance plan should be designed by people who work with non-resident cases every week. I explain more of this in the inheritance section of our guide to buying property in Spain as a non-resident.

Can I do this without travelling to Spain?

Mostly, yes, but let me be precise here, because this is exactly where bad information hurts families. The preparation is 100% remote. We gather your details and documents online, prepare the will with the choice of law clause where it makes sense, and coordinate it with your existing home-country will. What cannot be delegated is the signature itself. Under Spanish law, making a will is a strictly personal act (article 670 of the Spanish Civil Code), so nobody can sign a Spanish will on your behalf, not even with a power of attorney.

So, in practice, the usual route is that everything is prepared in advance and you sign before a Spanish notary on your next trip. With the document ready and the appointment arranged, the signature itself is a short visit of about fifteen minutes. The alternative is a will made in your own country under your local rules that also covers your Spanish assets. That can work, but it tends to bring back the certified translations and legalisations the Spanish will was meant to avoid, so it is something to assess case by case, not a shortcut.

Now, a power of attorney is still a very useful tool in the plan. Your heirs can use one for other steps, like obtaining an NIE or accepting the inheritance, without travelling. It just cannot replace you at the notary for the will itself. If you are not sure whether your current setup works, our free Spanish will checker takes a couple of minutes and tells you where you stand.

What it costs and how to start

Our fee for a Spanish will is 225 euros + VAT. Inheritance tax advice for a full estate plan is a separate service, because the will is one piece and the tax planning around it is another, and we prefer to be transparent about that instead of hiding one inside the other.

If you take one thing from this article, take this. The best moment to make a Spanish will is while everything is fine and nobody needs it. It is a small, fast, inexpensive document, and it is the difference between your family signing papers in an organised process and your family untangling two legal systems in a language they do not speak.

One last thing. This article is general orientation, not legal or tax advice for your specific situation, and every estate has its own details. Juan makes me say it, because this is a law firm. If you want us to look at your case, contact us and we will tell you exactly what your situation needs.

Daniel Bertomeu, tax advisor, AEDAF #06838. The legal side of our will and inheritance work is handled by my father, Juan Antonio Bertomeu Vallés, abogado, ICALI #4643, in practice on the Costa Blanca since 1991.