Antonio Flores’ Blog

It has been widely believed that British citizens who own property in Spain will invariably be subject to English law, which determines freedom of disposition of assets, as opposed to the more restrictive Spanish inheritance law where children will get 2/3 of the estate and the spouse the life interest of one third (and who may not be the preferred choice of the testator/testatrix!).

The reason for this is that under Article 9.8 of the preliminary title to the Spanish Civil Code, succession to all property, whether movable or immovable and wherever situated is determined by the law of the deceased’s nationality, in our case, English law, which takes relevance but surprisingly, it conversely stipulates that for property located abroad it will be the laws where the property is located which are to be applied. And in Spain forcible inheritors will almost always challenge a will if they don’t receive what they are supposed to get according the Spanish Civil Code, unless of course there are more debts than assets!

The above legal quarrel between both legal systems is now resolved by the Spanish Supreme Court, in various rulings, to the effect that if a British testator dies in Spain and:

• has moveable assets and property only in Spain then Spanish law applies.
• has property in the UK and Spain then English law applies.
• has movable assets in Spain only then English law applies.
• has property in Spain and assets in the UK (but not property), then Spanish law applies.

It normally happens that if no inheritor challenges the application of English law, which is normally typed into the will as the governing law, it will apply regardless of the above.

Antonio Flores Inheritance Spanish Inheritance Law, Spanish Wills, Wills in Spain

More often than is desirable some of my colleagues tend to overindulge in optimism when providing a legal opinion on a soon-to-be litigation matter. You can often hear and read on online forums the words “You have a strong case!“. This sort of a ‘closer’ phrase when selling services can bring about nasty surprises, especially if the judge thinks otherwise.

So I tend not to use this language when dealing with my clients, and will, on the contrary, give them a more elaborate opinion which will invariably include playing the devil’s advocate and exclude encouraging clients to file a case. Let’s not forget that the opposing party will also be assisted by expert legal advice who knows the law, case law and how certain judges perceive different types of disputes.

In my opinion any lawyer needs to be very frank and open about the possibilities of obtaining a favourable ruling and should provide a per cent ratio of success, which even in the most blatantly clear case should not exceed 75% (so run away from the 95% success rate claims, and do it quickly!).

Litigation is a double-edged sword that can turn out to be very expensive for our clients, especially if a case is lost and therefore we (lawyers) should contemplate all -legally- available options prior to dragging our clients into courtroom, with their best interests as the main motivation and the legal fee bill as the last!

Antonio Flores Litigation, Property ambulance chasers, litigation against spanish developers, spanish developer, spanish developers, spanish development, spanish property developer, spanish property developers