Cross border probate barristers.
Counsel for estates with foreign assets, overseas property, questions of domicile, competing wills in different countries and beneficiaries living abroad.
An estate that crosses a border rarely behaves the way the family expects. A holiday home in Spain or France turns out to be governed by local succession rules. A will made in England does not deal with a bank account in Dubai. A brother who has lived in Australia for thirty years is said to have lost his English domicile, and with it the basis of a claim. Meanwhile the estate cannot be distributed and the costs mount.
Clerk&Counsel introduces independent barristers, regulated by the Bar Standards Board, who deal with international estates in the Chancery Division of the High Court, the Business and Property Courts and the County Court. The panel includes chancery counsel who work regularly alongside lawyers and notaries in other jurisdictions, including counsel with a practice in Spain who advises clients dealing with the Spanish system.
Instructions come from solicitors, from executors and administrators, and directly from beneficiaries under the Public Access scheme, including beneficiaries who live abroad and want an English view of where they stand. Fees are agreed in writing before any work starts.
International estate work our counsel take on.
- Estates including overseas property, foreign bank accounts, foreign pensions and shares in foreign companies.
- Domicile disputes, including long term expatriates and people who returned to England late in life.
- Conflicts between an English will and a will made abroad, and accidental revocation.
- Forced heirship and reserved share regimes in civil law countries, and how they interact with English law.
- Resealing foreign grants, obtaining English grants in international estates and evidence of foreign law.
- Contentious probate with an international element: capacity, undue influence and want of knowledge and approval.
- Inheritance Act 1975 claims where domicile is disputed or assets sit abroad.
- Trust structures holding foreign assets, and disputes between trustees and beneficiaries in different countries.
- Enforcement of English judgments and orders against assets in other jurisdictions.
The question that decides the rest.
Domicile is where most international estate disputes actually begin. It governs succession to moveable property, it determines whether an Inheritance Act claim can be brought at all, and it drives inheritance tax exposure on worldwide assets. Yet it is not established by a passport or an address. It is established by an intensely factual inquiry into where a person intended to make their permanent home.
That inquiry looks at property owned, family connections, where children were educated, where medical treatment was taken, burial wishes, tax filings, club memberships, correspondence and the pattern of travel over decades. Counsel builds the case from documents and witnesses, and will tell you at an early stage whether the domicile argument you are relying on is realistic or whether the case needs to be approached another way.
Overseas assets and parallel processes.
Land abroad is generally governed by the law of the country where it sits. That can mean fixed shares for children, restrictions on what a surviving spouse can inherit, local taxes payable before transfer, and a local process that runs on its own timetable. The English estate cannot simply be wound up while that sits unresolved.
The practical answer is coordination. Counsel advises on the English position, identifies exactly which questions have to be answered by a lawyer or notary abroad, and helps structure the administration so that the two processes do not contradict each other. Where the family is in dispute, that coordination becomes more important still, because inconsistent positions taken in two countries are used against people later.
Contentious international estates.
The usual grounds of challenge apply: lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, want of knowledge and approval, and defective execution. The international element adds questions of which formalities had to be complied with, whether a later foreign will revoked an earlier English one, and whether a document executed abroad meets the requirements that make it valid here.
These disputes are often between siblings or between a second spouse and adult children, and they carry a level of feeling that makes early realistic advice valuable. Written advice on merits, evidence and value is almost always the right first step, and it is far cheaper than discovering at trial that the strongest looking point was never going to work.
Fixed fees and staged instruction.
Advice and drafting are quoted as fixed fees against the papers. Hearings are quoted as a brief fee plus refreshers. For high value international estates the work is usually staged, so you can take advice on domicile and merits before committing to the cost of proceedings, then on quantum, then on settlement.
Clerk&Counsel's service fee of up to £150 depending on urgency is shown separately from counsel's professional fee before you decide whether to proceed. There is no charge to make an enquiry.
Specialist areas within this practice.
- Expat wills and probate
Advice for British expatriates and families with assets abroad.
- Spain and UK legal advice
Counsel with a Spanish practice for clients with Spanish interests.
- Probate dispute barrister
Will validity and Inheritance Act claims.
- Chancery barristers
Trusts, estates, property and equitable claims.
Tell us where the assets and the family are.
Send a short outline of the countries involved, the wills that exist and what is in dispute. We will come back with counsel options, a fee basis and a sensible first step.
Common questions.
What is international probate?
It is the administration of an estate that touches more than one country, either because the person who died owned assets abroad, lived abroad, held another nationality, or left beneficiaries in other countries. The core difficulty is that each country applies its own rules to the assets within its borders, so a single death can generate parallel processes that have to be coordinated rather than run in isolation.
Does an English will cover property abroad?
Sometimes, but not reliably. Many countries apply their own succession law to land within their territory, and some apply forced heirship rules that override what a will says. A separate local will, carefully drafted so that it does not accidentally revoke the English one, is often the safer structure. Where the person has already died, counsel will advise on how the two systems interact on the facts as they stand.
Why does domicile matter so much?
Domicile determines which country's law governs succession to moveable assets and has a major effect on inheritance tax exposure. Domicile is not the same as residence or nationality, and it is sticky: a domicile of origin in England is not lost simply by living abroad for many years. Disputes about the domicile of someone who spent decades overseas are among the most fact heavy issues in this area.
Can a foreign grant be used in England?
A grant from certain Commonwealth and other recognised jurisdictions can be resealed here, which avoids a fresh application. Otherwise a grant has to be obtained in England for the English assets, often supported by evidence of foreign law about who is entitled to take the grant. Counsel can advise on the correct route and draft the supporting evidence.
Can I bring an Inheritance Act claim if assets are abroad?
A claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 requires the deceased to have died domiciled in England and Wales. If that is established, the court can take foreign assets into account when assessing what reasonable provision looks like, although actually enforcing against those assets may require steps abroad. Domicile is often the first battleground in these claims.