WARNING: These posts will mention so avoided terms such as " your death", " your will" or " your heirs". People with hipersesitivity to these, please abstain :)
"According to Spanish law, the succession is governed by national law of the deceased at time of death"
It is the well known provision 9.8 of our Napoleonic Civil Code:
"La sucesión por causa de muerte se regirá por la Ley nacional del causante en el momento de su fallecimiento, cualesquiera que sean la naturaleza de los bienes y el país donde se encuentren. Sin embargo, las disposiciones hechas en testamento y los pactos sucesorios ordenados conforme a la Ley nacional del testador o del disponente en el momento de su otorgamiento conservarán su validez, aunque sea otra la Ley que rija la sucesión, si bien las legítimas se ajustarán, en su caso, a esta última. Los derechos que por ministerio de la Ley se atribuyan al cónyuge supérstite se regirán por la misma Ley que regule los efectos del matrimonio, a salvo siempre las legítimas de los descendientes"
This dense provision actually set these three basic rules:
1) Sucession after death will be governed by your National Law at the moment of your death, regardless nature of assets and country where they are located. "Your nationality will govern your death"
2) Old wills or inheritance agreements made in the past under a National Law, different to your nationality when dying will be valid if they recpect rules of reserved portions" Your foreign past wills are valid if they respect legal heirs"
3) Inheritance Law applicable to your widow will be the same as Marital Law, always respecting reserved portions of descendants. " Your foreign widow comes after your descendant legal heirs"
But who are those " legal heirs" and how much they get by Law? We will explain this in our next post.
Best wishes,
Jesús Castro and Maria L. de Castro
Conil beach, Cádiz, Costa de la Luz by Motxilos at Flickr.com