Go global with your eyes wide open
Spain, Portugal, France and Italy are still the most popular destinations for Britons buying second homes in Europe, but countries like Greece, Switzerland and Bulgaria are also getting a piece of the action. Above, the Greek island of Santorini.
Do you own a home or have a bank account or other assets in a foreign country?
Was your spouse or civil partner or current lover or romantic partner born abroad - or were you born abroad and live in England or Wales with a foreign-born spouse or civil partner?
Do you spend a lot of time in one or more foreign countries, or have you done so in recent years?
Have you changed your domicile to Singapore or Sweden or, more likely, Spain or Portugal or Italy, are you sure that this change has been effective - that HMRC will agree that you have a foreign domicile? Your heirs may lose a small fortune if you get this wrong - and evidence suggests that many people do err in this tricky area. Inheritance tax of 40 per cent may apply to your worldwide assets.
Are you up to date with your QNUPS and QROPS? QNUPS are qualifying non-UK pension schemes. QROPS are Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Schemes (QROPS). Expatriates from England, Wales and North Ireland should look into the advisability of moving their UK pensions into another scheme.
The answers to the questions raised above are important concerning the kind of will you make, the number of different wills you should make, and how and where you should make them. Your residence and domicile are also important factors in your financial planning.
Marbella. Melbourne. Tuscany. The Algarve. Dubai. Florida. Fillintheblank.
The very model of silk-dressing-gown elegance, Sir Noël Coward (1899–1973) moved far - very far - from his modest suburban London origins. Successful as a playwright, actor, composer, actor and director, Coward left England for tax-friendlier Switzerland and Jamaica, where he died. He had separate wills for his English and Swiss assets, and his executors established the Noël Coward Foundation.
Hundreds of thousands of Britons have assets abroad, usually a house or flat but also savings accounts or other property. Conversely, many foreigners have assets in the UK.
For all of them, a will in each country where they have assets may be advisable - and, as with one's main will, it should aim for tax efficiency and may require advice from local experts versed in the foreign country's law, tax and financial systems, and language.
Crucially, any and all additional wills need to be drafted in conjunction with your main will. Here's a trap to avoid: When drafting a new will, It is customary to revoke all other wills. But if you have one or more other wills for your foreign assets, you probably do not want to revoke them. If you want your Spanish will to cover your mansion in Marbella, and only your mansion in Marbella, make sure your British will does not revoke your Spanish will - and vice versa.
In America, tax and inheritance laws vary from state to state. If you want a will for your American assets and you have assets in more than one state, you will certainly need specialist advice.
You do not necessarily have to go to each country where you own property to have a will made on the spot. A specialist solicitor in England or Wales can draw up one or more "foreign" wills, or arrange for them to be made for you. Care needs to be taken that one does not cancel out the other(s).
Foreign-born husband, wife, civil partner, heir???
If you, the will-maker, are English or Welsh and your Other Half is foreign-born, or vice versa, inheritance is not straightforward, in part because domicility is not straightforward. Special rules may apply; specialist advice may be required.
Residence, ordinary residence, domicile!?
You can live and work in the UK for decades but be domiciled elsewhere. You can live and work outside the UK for decades and be domiciled here.
Anthony Shaffer (author of Sleuth and The Wicker Man) was born and died in Britain but had an Australian wife and lived down under for many years. For tax reasons, his actress wife Diane Cilento, his writer brother Peter, and other family members wanted his domicile to be Australia. His paramour in England, Jo Capece Minutolo, preferred English domicile. Her ability to claim against his estate through the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 depended on Shaffer being domiciled in England. Full story.
Actor Richard Burton was born in Wales in 1925, lived most of his adult life in America, and died in Switzerland in 1984. A good deal of inheritance tax rode on his domicile - Wales versus America versus Switzerland. Full story.
Sir Charles Clore was born in England, had business links with Jersey, and died in Monaco. His tangled business affairs and questions of domicile required several court cases to resolve. Full story.
Andreas Nathanael left £50,000 to his Polish-born fiancee, Renata Cyganik. She thought she was entitled to more, but she would be allowed to argue her claim only if Andreas was domiciled in England or Wales. Andreas spent virtually his entire adult life in London, but he also had many ties to his native Cyprus. Agulian v Cyganik sorted it all out. Full story.
British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith had children with four different women - one Bolivian, two French, one English. Born in France to a British father and French mother, he lived mostly in England, returned to France in old age and died in Spain in 1997. Full story.
More information on domicile is here.
" . . . "
"At the age of twenty-one he had inherited a considerable fortune, a hundred thousand pounds, and when he left Oxford he threw himself into the gay life, which in those days (now Mr. Warburton was a man of four and fifty) offered itself to the young man of good family.
...Mr. Warburton was a snob. ...He was touchy and quick-tempered, but he would much rather have been snubbed by a person of quality than flattered by a commoner. His name figured insignificantly in Burke's Peerage, and it was marvellous to watch the ingenuity he used to mention his distant relationship to the noble family he belonged to; but never a word did he say of the honest Liverpool manufacturer from whom, through his mother, a Miss Gubbins, he had come by his fortune. It was the terror of his fashionable life that at Cowes, maybe, or at Ascot, when he was with a duchess or even with a prince of the blood, one of these relatives would claim acquaintance with him."
"He had stated in his will that wherever he died he wished his body to be brought back to Sembulu, and buried among the people he loved within the sound of the softly flowing river."
W Somerset Maugham, "The Outstation" (1924)
