On Monday 17 August 2015 the provisions of EU Regulation 650/2012 (implemented by EU Regulation 1329/2014) officially became law across the majority of the European Union.
The regulation, whose expressed scope is “on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession” is designed to harmonise the legal determination of inheritance and the rights of heirs where an individual has willable interests in more than one member state. Effectively, it gives individuals who perhaps are holders of several EU nationalities, or who are domiciled in one EU state but nationals of another, the right to choose which of those jurisdictions will apply its laws in determining the legality of any claims against the estate.
Although important in ensuring that conditions of an individual’s will, or the default conditions in the case of intestacy, are protected through their preferred legal system, it does not have any impact on local tax or common laws applicable in each member state where willed assets are found, so will not be able to be used to circumvent local tax laws in favour of a more generous regime in the state having the jurisdiction.
In order to be able to benefit from this new legislation any national or domiciled resident of any of the applicable EU member states may submit a “European Certificate of Succession” form which, subject to acceptance will be registered with the appropritae national authority.
