Domicile
Whether inheritance tax is due on your death, or on certain lifetime gifts you make, depends partly on what is known as your ‘domicile status’.
If you are domiciled in the UK, your worldwide estate is subject to inheritance tax.
If you are not domiciled in the UK, only your UK estate is subject to inheritance tax.
The concept of domicile is quite complicated and it is not simply based on where you live or the country of which you are a national or citizen. Instead, it is the jurisdiction with which you are most closely connected and where you intend to reside indefinitely. For many people this is not clear cut and there can be confusion over their domicile status.
Overseas assets or property
Making a Will can be more complicated if you own foreign property. There may be specific rules in the country concerned that affect how the property will be dealt with following your death. The result is that you may need either:
a multi-jurisdictional Will to deal with assets located in more than one country.
different Wills dealing with the property in each jurisdiction to avoid local problems. With this option, all Wills need to be drafted very carefully to ensure that they can co-exist alongside each other and do not inadvertently revoke the validity of each other.
If you have overseas assets or property, you should obtain specialist professional advice so that a co-ordinated strategy can be put in place for you.
When the Testator (person making the Will) is based overseas
If you are not based in the UK, a UK Will that applies to your worldwide assets may not be appropriate, and specialist professional advice should be obtained.
However, where you are still wishing to make a Will which will only deal with your UK assets and property it may still be possible to use our service at Bequeathed and make a Will to deal with your UK assets only.