Inheriting a house in Spain while living abroad

The clock starts before the paperwork does

The deadline for filing Spanish inheritance tax is six months from the day of the death. Not from the funeral, not from the day the family agrees, not from the day the will turns up: from the date of death. Most people discover this with two or three months already spent gathering papers in two countries.

An extension of the same length can be requested, but it has to be asked for within the first five months. That is the small print that costs the most: whoever remembers the extension in the sixth month can no longer ask for it. If there are heirs abroad, documents to translate or a foreign will involved, the useful question is not “will we make it?” but “should we ask for the extension now, just in case?”.

The documents, and the order they have to be asked for in

The order matters, because each paper is the key to the next one. First the full death certificate, issued by the Civil Registry. With that you request the certificate of last will acts, which says whether the deceased made a will in Spain and before which notary. Only then can you obtain the authorised copy of the will itself.

And here is the wait nobody plans for: the request for the last will certificate cannot be submitted until fifteen working days have passed since the date of death. Fifteen working days are not fifteen days, and they fall exactly when the family wants to get on with it. The six-month deadline, meanwhile, has already started running.

To that list add what depends on each heir and each house: an NIE for every heir, the property deed, the latest council tax receipt, the bank balances as at the date of death. Anything coming from outside Spain usually needs an apostille and a sworn translation, and that means weeks, not afternoons.

Which law governs the estate, which is rarely the one people assume

It is the first question a Spanish notary asks, and the one that surprises foreign families most. Within the European Union, Regulation (EU) 650/2012 starts from the deceased's habitual residence at the time of death to determine the law applicable to the succession as a whole.

The same Regulation allows a person to choose, in their will, the law of the State of their nationality. That is why a properly drafted Spanish will is worth so much to someone with a house here and a family elsewhere: it is not only about who gets what, it is about stating which law governs. Whoever left that unsaid blocks nothing, but opens an argument that is settled with paperwork and time, and neither is in surplus at that point.

When the heir is not resident, the tax does not go to the region

This is the fundamental difference from any guide written for residents. Inheritance tax is devolved to the autonomous regions, but where that competence has not been devolved — and the typical case is precisely the non-resident one — the self-assessment is filed with the national tax agency, on form 650, and not with a regional tax office.

The practical consequence: the counter, the form and the place where questions get answered are not the ones a resident neighbour was told about, and a good deal of what is written online is written for the other case. We give no rate and no relief here: they depend on the region, on the family relationship and on the heir's existing assets, and a credible, wrong number on this page would cost real money.

What carries on running while the estate is being settled

This is what almost no inheritance page mentions, and it is exactly the part we see. The house does not stop because its owner has died. The council tax for the year keeps accruing and the bill keeps being issued in the deceased's name until somebody changes it. Community fees keep being charged. Electricity and water stay on direct debit from an account that the bank, very often, freezes as soon as it learns of the death.

That freeze is where most of the shocks come from: months of returned direct debits, a cut-off supply, a community levy nobody saw go past, and all the official post piling up in a shut letterbox while Spanish administrative deadlines are counted from notification, not from reading.

The property's own annual obligation does not disappear either: a non-resident's home files whether it is let or not. Which return falls to you, and from what date, depends on the day of the death and on when the estate is accepted. It is one of those questions worth putting in writing to the tax agency or an adviser before the deadline, not after.

The day the house changes name, and what has to be told to whom

Once the deed of acceptance is signed and the tax is paid, the property still has to be registered in the heirs' names at the Land Registry. Until that moment, for practically everyone who has to check — a buyer, a bank, an insurer — the house still belongs to the deceased.

Then begins the part nobody writes down and everybody discovers through a letter: changing the ownership at the Cadastre and on the council tax bill, telling the residents' association, putting the utilities and the insurance in the name of whoever inherited, and updating the address the administration writes to. None of that happens by itself, and each one has its own counter.

What this guide cannot tell you

How much you will pay. Which reliefs apply to you. Whether to accept the estate outright or under benefit of inventory, which is the decision that protects you when nobody knows whether there were debts. Whether your town hall's land value tax applies to you, and on what calculation.

All four depend on papers we have not seen and on one specific region, and all four are settled by a notary, a gestoría or a lawyer, which is what we are not. What we can do, free and in writing, is tell you which paper is missing, open the post that arrives at the house, and warn you before a deadline runs out.

Frequently asked questions

Services

The other guides

Official sources

• Spanish Tax Agency · inheritance and gift tax for non-residents
• Spanish Tax Agency · filing deadlines for form 650
• Spanish Official Gazette · Inheritance and Gift Tax Regulation, RD 1629/1991
• Spanish Ministry of Justice · certificate of last will and testament acts
• European Union · Succession Regulation (EU) 650/2012