Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:19am
Unfortunately I lost my wife in 2014 and went through the IHT process, we have an apt with app value of €95000.
Last year I responded to someone who had just lost her husband, I have copied/pasted my response to her to save me writing it all out again.
Everyone's circumstances will be slightly different but it may give you an insight into how things panned out for me.
Pauline, you will notice my referral to the changes made to EU law, I was right in the middle of the changes.
Copy below.
I found myself in your position when my wife passed away in 2014.
We were non resident and jointly owned property in the UK and Spain, we had hand written mirror wills in the uk which were well out of date but we had an official Spanish will.
In the uk I spoke to the probate office who informed me that it isn't always necessary to through probate and in fact I did it all myself without any experience whatsoever.
Find out from the banks/building societies what their financial limits are for each account before probate becomes necessary, I shuffled money around my accounts to remain below their limits. This way only death certificates are needed to put the account into your name only, I also bought extra certs at the time of registering the death.
Also speak the land registry, I filled in their forms and sent them back along with a death certificate, you should inherit your husband's half of the uk property automatically as his spouse but the land registry need to know. The utility companies may need the death certs too.
As for Spain, I could not have done this without the help of my fantastic solicitor who walked me through the process, she was so patient as I had so many questions but she answered every single email promptly, I gave her power of attorney and only went over to Spain to sign paperwork at the end of the process, she also changed my Spanish bank account into my name only and yes they did freeze my wife's half, keep enough in there to cover your direct debits.
As you will be inheriting your husband's half of the property inheritance tax could be due and should be paid within 6 months. I took quotes from 5 different solicitors, their fees varied enormously, luckily I picked the right one.
In 2014 there was a law going through the EU courts regarding how Spain were unfairly taxing non residents at different rates to Spanish residents, this law was upheld at about the same time as I had just paid the inheritance tax but my solicitor claimed this back for me, it took 13 months for the refund to hit my account though, my solicitor said that I was the first person that she knew of to recover this tax.
Also around the same time allowance levels for inheritance tax within the Valencian community were raised to 100,000 euros, so you may get away with the tax depending upon the value of your property, not sure if these allowance levels are the same today.
This was the way the situation worked out for me, I am sure that others may have had different experiences but maybe a little of the above may help you.
End of copy.
In terms of costs and after reclaiming the already paid IHT this cost me app €2700 which covered the Notary, land registry, amendment to our Spanish will and maybe other bits which I can't recall lol and then the Solicitor's fee which would have been app €1000 but I have to say that my Solicitor was fantastic, I had taken 6 quotes in total and some were nearly €6000.
HTH, Ken.