If you don’t currently have a will

• Do you have children under the age of 18 - who will take care of them if you don’t specify your wishes in a Will?

• Is your property in joint names? - if your partner remarries after you die is your children´s inheritance protected?

• How will you make provision for your partner if you are unmarried and die before them?

• Do you want your children inheriting everything at the age of 18 if you die before they reach that age?

• Did you know that even if you are married or in a civil partnership, if you don’t have a Will, you will NOT automatically inherit all of your spouse's estate? – in most cases you will only get the first £270,000 and a life interest in the remainder.

• This fact in itself could cause the payment of considerable amounts of inheritance tax that would have been avoided if a Will was in place

Your assets are not placed in Trust

• What would happen if your children divorced or were made bankrupt after inheriting your estate?

• If you die and your partner re-marries and then dies themselves – is your children’s inheritance protected?

• Is your life insurance and pension in trust for the person you want it to go to or will it go into your estate and potentially be liable for inheritance tax at 40%?

• If you or your partner requires long term residential care after you die will your family be forced to sell your home to pay for it?

• Do you want to mitigate the inheritance tax on your estate when you die but do not want to lose control of assets by simply giving them away?

• Would you like to prevent your assets adding to the value of your children when you die and causing them an increased inheritance tax bill?

What if you lose mental capacity?

• Do you assume you will automatically be granted Power of attorney for your partner should they lose mental capacity?

• Do you know that even if you are married you will not get Power of Attorney automatically granted to you for your spouse?

• If you live alone who would you like to make decisions regarding your welfare if needed?

• Do you want your affairs to be controlled by the Court of Protection?

• Lasting Power of Attorney has to be granted by yourself while you have full mental capacity, it cannot be taken or assumed if you lose it – at that stage it is too late.

• What impact would being forced to attend court to ask for the permission of a total stranger to conduct your private family affairs have upon the quality of life of your loved ones?

What are the advantages of organising a Spanish Pre-paid funeral plan?

• The average cost of funeral services, when needed in Spain, is currently around €4500

• This is something that would usually need to be paid for well before any gifts that you may leave would have been disbursed often putting significant financial pressure upon your loved ones.

• Funeral prices in Spain have risen over 40% in the last 5 years and the trend is not slowing.

• You can prevent all the uncertainty and guarantee that all your funeral expenses will be taken care of when the time comes by simply setting up a Spanish Pre-Paid Funeral Plan today.

• We provide one of Spain's lowest-priced plans at just €2595 inclusive, so it makes perfect sense to “buy now and use later”

I have an English will already, do I need you to write a separate Spanish will?

• It is essential that British Expats in Spain have a separate Will written for each country that they hold assets in.

• Your English Will should be witnessed by 2 people who are over the age of 18, of sound mind and who are not members of your family.

• A notary must oversee the signing of your Spanish Will.

• For the full protection of each beneficiary, your English Will should ideally contain within it a Nil Rate Band Trust and, if you own a property and are married or are leaving that property to your children, a Residential Nil Rate Band Trust also.

• Spanish Wills for British Expats should contain a Brussels IV (EU succession 650/2012) clause within them stating that you wish the Law of England and Wales (or Scotland, Northern Ireland or the Isle of Man) to govern the succession of your Spanish estate enabling you to choose who you wish your beneficiaries to be and not be dictated to by Spanish law as to who those beneficiaries MUST be.

• As English-speaking Spanish Will writers, for absolute clarity, we take extra care when making a Spanish Will for English or British people to ensure that it clearly states within it, which specific legal jurisdiction within the UK is being elected for the governance of the succession of a Spanish estate because there is no such thing as ‘’British law’’ or ‘’UK law’’, something we see written often within existing Wills that we are given to check over.

• Don’t assume ‘’everything will be OK when the time comes’’ when you make a Will in Spain - pre-2016, the thought that England would not be part of the EU by the end of 2020 would have been incomprehensible. In the same way, no one can know if Spain will be in the EU at the time you die, so it is essential to ensure that your Wills are written 100% correctly, with full legal compliance within each country and without any ambiguity whatsoever that could potentially cause your beneficiaries and executors problems in the future.

• Trusts are able to be constructed in British Wills affording greater protection to your beneficiaries, whereas the concept of Trusts is not recognised in Spain.

Why should British Expats use Thy Will Be Done instead of a Spanish Abogado?

• We are English speaking Spanish Will writers

• We have bilingual staff Including solicitors

• We can liaise with the notary on your behalf

• We only use English-speaking notaries

• We can draft your fully legal Spanish and English Wills

• We can draft Wills legal in Scotland, Northern Ireland, The Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey

• We can construct legal Trusts within your English Will to fully protect your beneficiaries

• We have offices in both England and Spain

• We can handle all aspects of Spanish and English probate

• We have a team able to quickly sell your property in Spain or the UK

• We deal with all aspects of Powers of Attorney and registration in both Spain and England

• We have been voted into the top 3 Will writers at the British Wills and Probate awards for the past 4 years running