Inheritance Laws for Foreign-Owned Property: A 2026 Country-by-Country Guide

Published on: April 28, 2026

Quick answer: Inheritance laws don't follow your passport, most jurisdictions apply lex rei sitae, so the country where the property sits decides who inherits it. Many civil-law countries (Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Germany) impose forced heirship, reserving a fixed share for children and spouse that your will cannot override. The key tool inside the EU is Brussels IV (Regulation 650/2012), which lets you elect the law of your nationality in your will to override those forced-heirship rules, but it governs succession law, not tax. Inheritance law and inheritance tax are separate questions: the property's country almost always taxes the inheritance regardless of which law applies, so plan both with a country-specific will.

Most cross-border investors discover the truth about international inheritance only after it's too late. When you're buying, succession is an afterthought. When a relative dies and a property in another country sits on the estate, you suddenly find that the law of your home country may have very little say in who inherits it.

This guide covers what every international real estate investor should know about how inheritance actually works when property crosses borders, including the EU mechanism that lets you override default rules with a single sentence in your will.

The Core Principle: Lex Rei Sitae

Most jurisdictions follow the principle of lex rei sitae, the law of the location of the property, for immovable assets. Translation: the country where your apartment, villa, or office sits decides who can inherit it, regardless of your nationality, residence, or where your will was drafted.

This creates two immediate problems for cross-border investors:

1. Forced heirship rules in many civil-law countries override your will entirely
2. Inheritance tax is governed by separate rules from inheritance law, and the two are often in different countries

Let's untangle both.

Forced Heirship: The Civil Law Trap

Most Continental European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern jurisdictions follow some version of forced heirship, a system where a fixed share of the estate is reserved for specific heirs (typically children and the surviving spouse), and you cannot disinherit them.

If you're from a common-law background (UK, US, Ireland, Canada outside Quebec, Australia), this concept is unfamiliar. In your home jurisdiction, you can largely leave your property to whomever you want, subject only to limited family provision claims. In Spain, France, or Italy, you cannot.

Here's how the reserved share works in major investment destinations:

In practice, absent a Brussels IV election, an unmarried British investor with three adult children who buys a villa in Spain would generally be unable to leave it entirely to a partner, a charity, or one favored child under default Spanish succession rules, since roughly two-thirds is reserved for the children. A valid election of national law in the will can change this. Take country-specific legal advice.

The Game-Changer: EU Succession Regulation 650/2012 (Brussels IV)

In 2015, the EU introduced what is arguably the most important cross-border inheritance reform in modern history: Regulation (EU) 650/2012, commonly called Brussels IV.

The headline mechanism is simple but powerful: anyone can elect, in their will, that the law of their nationality should govern the succession of their entire estate, including property located in EU member states.

Concretely:

• A British citizen with property in Spain can include a clause electing English law to govern the succession. English law allows full testamentary freedom. The Spanish forced heirship rules drop out.
• An American with property in France can elect the law of their state of nationality (with some nuance around US states).
• A Turkish citizen with property in Portugal can elect Turkish law (though Turkey itself has forced heirship, so this may not help, sometimes you want the local law to apply).

The election must be made expressly in the will. Without the clause, default rules apply, which means the law of the deceased's habitual residence governs the entire estate, and habitual residence is a factual test that often surprises people.

A few critical caveats:

• Ireland and Denmark opted out of Brussels IV. Property in Ireland follows the old rules.
• The UK also opted out, but UK property is largely common-law in nature and the issue is less acute. However, EU citizens with UK property must rely on UK private international law.
• Non-EU countries are not bound. A clause electing US law and applied to French property works because France applies Brussels IV, not because the US recognizes the regulation.
• Inheritance tax is unaffected. Brussels IV governs succession law, not taxation. French inheritance tax generally applies to French property regardless of which country's succession law governs, subject to available allowances, reliefs and any applicable tax treaty.

This last point is the most misunderstood. Let's address it directly.

Inheritance Tax vs. Inheritance Law

These are completely separate questions:

• Inheritance law asks: who is legally entitled to inherit?
• Inheritance tax asks: how much does the government take from the inheritor?

The country where property sits almost always taxes the inheritance, regardless of where the deceased lived or where the heir lives. Some countries also tax based on the heir's residence, creating double-tax exposure that is partially mitigated by tax treaties, but inheritance tax treaties are far rarer than income tax treaties.

Approximate inheritance tax exposure on directly-held property in 2026, for a non-resident heir of a non-resident decedent:

The US 60,000 dollar exemption for non-residents is one of the most overlooked tax traps in cross-border real estate. A non-resident alien who owns a US property worth