One-Day Workshop for English Wills & Probate Solicitors
Clients these days often own foreign assets, have close relatives (i.e. future beneficiaries) who live abroad or even move to a non-UK country themselves. In all of these cases, a “standard” English last will and testament does not adequately cover all the client’s needs. Foreign IHT consequences, for example, are often completely ignored. As is the fact that many European jurisdictions do not recognise an English trust for probate and IHT purposes. British and US expats (and their lawyers) must be aware that standard Common Law estate planning techniques are likely to fail to protect wealth in cross-border situations and may even produce unintended, counter-productive results.
The simple advice “set up an additional will for your foreign assets” is rarely the best solution because the existence of various wills even increases the risk of conflicting interpretation by executors, probate judges and the respective national tax authorities. The existence of more than one will also creates higher costs and usually slows down probate significantly, because probate registrars usually request to see (and have translated) all existing wills, even those who do not directly apply to their country (because that is what they want to verify).
The German-British probate expert Bernhard Schmeilzl specialises in international wills and estate planning for British-German and British-Austrian families since 2001. He knows the typical problems that arise when an English will lands on the desk of a German or Austrian probate registrar or vice versa. Most succession lawyers only know the rules and practical operations of their own jurisdiction. The probate experts at Graf & Partners, however, apply for hundreds of grants each year in England, Germany and Austria, acting either as probate lawyers for personal representatives or acting as executors themselves.
These combined 20+ years of practical experience in non-contentious as well as contentious probate matters in Germany, Austria and the UK make the lawyers of Graf & Partners sought-after lecturers and speakers.
German solicitor Schmeilzl regularly conducts legal seminars and practical workshops on international wills and estate planning as well as on how to obtain probate in Germany, Austria and England. Popular topics for such inhouse seminars for British and German law firms are:
Preparing International Wills: A Checklist for Clients and their Lawyers
British Expats Beware of Foreign Succession Laws and Foreign IHT
International Wills: What your English Solicitor does not tell you (but should)
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The law firm Graf & Partners and its German-English litigation department GP Chambers was established in 2003 and has many years of experience with British-German and US-German probate matters, including the representation of clients in contentious probate matters. If you wish us to advise or represent you in a German or cross border inheritance case please contact German solicitor Bernhard Schmeilzl, LL.M. (Leicester) at +49 941 463 7070.