Inheritance laws with no children

Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 11:57am

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Stevec2x

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Hi all

First of all, yes, I know I need to see a lawyer at some stage...

We are an unmarried couple, with no children, resident in Spain.

We want to be clear about inheritance laws that apply when one of us dies (I know that Spanish law favours the children first, but we don't have any). We currently haven't made Spanish wills.

We are joint owners of our home, so that's the first issue. I've heard that the survivor would have to pay inheritance tax on half the value of the house, and that the only way to avoid it is to get married, but I'm not sure about that at all.

I've looked on this forum and others, but almost everybody else has children, making it difficult for me to gain reliable knowledge.

Does anybody on this forum have any knowledge? I'd like to have a little more knowledge before I consult a lawyer!

Cheers

Steve

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Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:41pm

Madcatwoman

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Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:41pm

Hi

Go onto the website expatica.com and type in the search engine "Spanish inheritance law and succession " it has a lot of information which will hopefully give you an answer.

Hope it helps :)

Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2021 7:14am

Kenbo

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Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2021 7:14am

Steve

I went through the Inheritance tax scenario in 2014 when I lost my wife and I can confirm that getting married would not avoid paying tax on the half of the house that you inherit.

We did have kids and they are written into the will but it made no difference at that point as we both bequeathed our half of the property to the other half.

I am not going to say too much more on Inheritance tax rates etc as I feel sure that the circumstances would be different now and the fact that we were non res but you do have an allowance ( around €100,000 in the Valencian region) and won't pay tax on the full value of the inherited half, this tax has to be paid within 6 months of the death.

What I would say though is get a move on with your Spanish will, for what it costs it makes things much simpler when an unfortunate unexpected event occurs, as it did for me.

I used a fantastic Solicitor who walked me through the whole process of Inheritance, I still use her today.

Ken