French Inheritance and UK Debt liability

Keep_pedalling

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

It was clear but I may have misunderstood what the OP said and what was done. In the instance your query any estate held in England and Wales is not subject to Scottish rules since the Scottish courts have no jurisdiction.

I believe you are wrong on this point. A Scottish executor will gather all UK assets and distribute them according to the laws of Scotland.

unforeseen

See the Johnny Hallyday case. Property in France gets dealt with under the French Inheritance Laws because the UK didn't sign up to the EU regulations that allow a foreign will to override a country's existing will/inheritance rules

unholyangel

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

It was clear but I may have misunderstood what the OP said and what was done. In the instance your query any estate held in England and Wales is not subject to Scottish rules since the Scottish courts have no jurisdiction.

If they were domiciled in scotland, then yes they would have jurisdiction. Domicile can be one of origin, choice, dependency (if children) etc.

This page perhaps gives some insight that despite the property being held in spain, the estate itself will be distributed by scotlands laws of succession:

In order to ensure that the transfer of a Spanish property to a beneficiary is successful, the change in ownership should be registered with the Spanish Land Registry.

Even if the distribution of the estate will be generally ruled under Scots law, there are certain formalities and steps to be completed in Spain in order to change the ownership, and also deadlines and costs that should be taken into account by the executor(s) in Scotland.

unforeseen wrote: »

See the Johnny Hallyday case. Property in France gets dealt with under the French Inheritance Laws because the UK didn't sign up to the EU regulations that allow a foreign will to override a country's existing will/inheritance rules

I presume you meant the US and not the UK (his last will was written under californian laws)? If so, I don't believe they've heard the case yet. They (his adult children) were simply asking for an injunction to stop the widow disposing of certain assets (I know there was swiss and american property, not sure about french) before courts can rule on which nations succession laws should apply.

unforeseen

Yes but the premise is that Californian law is the same as UK law in that another country's laws can't overrule theirs and consequently vice versa.

The point being that if the UK had signed up to the EU regulation then UK law would have primacy when dealing with the French assets. They didn't sign so it doesn't and French law has the primacy over French assets.

Yorkshireman99

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

I believe you are wrong on this point. A Scottish executor will gather all UK assets and distribute them according to the laws of Scotland.

How? The Scottish executor has no legal powers outside Scotland. Only once he has probate in Scotland can he apply to have the grant rescaled in England and Wales and thus obtain probate there.

Keep_pedalling

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

How? The Scottish executor has no legal powers outside Scotland. Only once he has probate in Scotland can he apply to have the grant rescaled in England and Wales and thus obtain probate there.

The executor has the legal powers to distribute the entire estate under Scottish law, It is the distribution we are talking about not the confirmation / probate procedure. The majority of Scottish estates will contain movable English assets in the form of shares, bonds, funds or cash and it is all subject to legal rights.

Yorkshireman99

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

The executor has the legal powers to distribute the entire estate under Scottish law, It is the distribution we are talking about not the confirmation / probate procedure. The majority of Scottish estates will contain movable English assets in the form of shares, bonds, funds or cash and it is all subject to legal rights.

How can the executor have any powers outside the jurisdiction of the Scottish court?

Keep_pedalling

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

How can the executor have any powers outside the jurisdiction of the Scottish court?

It’s very simple, if for example the deceased had a bunch of UK equities, any UK financial organisation holding those share will release them to the executor on production of a certificate of confirmation, it does not need to be resealed in England or Wales. (See following page from Shareview)

https://www.shareview.co.uk/4/Info/Portfolio/default/en/Home/Shareholders/Pages/ManageEstate.aspx

My wife inherited most of her uncles movable estate, and believe me their was none of the complications you are suggesting with the substantial non Scottish assets apart from the US shares he held, but even they were classed as movable assets, and if he had any children they would have had a claim on them under Scottish law.

Yorkshireman99

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

It’s very simple, if for example the deceased had a bunch of UK equities, any UK financial organisation holding those share will release them to the executor on production of a certificate of confirmation, it does not need to be resealed in England or Wales. (See following page from Shareview)

https://www.shareview.co.uk/4/Info/Portfolio/default/en/Home/Shareholders/Pages/ManageEstate.aspx

My wife inherited most of her uncles movable estate, and believe me their was none of the complications you are suggesting with the substantial non Scottish assets apart from the US shares he held, but even they were classed as movable assets, and if he had any children they would have had a claim on them under Scottish law.

Noted and thanks. Maybe we are talking g at cross purposes. That article simply states the policy of one particular company not the law in general. AIUI estate assets within the jurisdiction of the English and Welsh Courts are subject those laws not those of any other jurisdiction. This means that the E&W probate rules apply. The most common way to deal with this is to get the probate from the external jurisdiction resealed in E&W whichever effectively means E&W probate. Without that the executor from the external jurisdiction has no legal authority to deal with estate assets within the E&W jurisdiction. I am quite happy to be proved wrong!

unforeseen

Which appears to be what the OP has done. They have taken a copy of the will to the not sure who has done what was needed. The French assets have then been dealt with under French Inheritance laws as they do not fall within UK law because we didn't sign up to the cross border agreement. For that reason they cannot be dealt with under UK probate law.