5 Disasters That Will Happen to Your Loved Ones if You Die Intestate

Looking at 5 very real disasters that can impact an expatriate’s family and loved ones if they die without making a will

Thinking about getting a will composed and correctly written is something the vast majority of us are guilty of NOT doing.  It’s probably because having to write a will forces us to face our own mortality, and who really wants to do that?

The trouble is, as an expatriate your situation is made more complex by the very fact that you’re living in a country that probably has different laws of succession to the nation in which you’re domiciled.  Therefore, not only should you have a will in place to ensure your estate is divided up as you want it to be, but you really need a will in place to protect the family you leave behind as laws in some countries could see your assets frozen for months, and them literally facing destitution in the meantime if you do not.

I’m going to cover 5 very real disasters that WILL happen to your loved ones if you die intestate.  If you were in need of a kick up the rear end to get your will written, this article is that proverbial kick!

Disaster One

If you’re footloose and fancy free, you’ve yet to meet a significant other and are happy living life as a singleton you might think you have no real reason to get a will written.  After all, if you die you probably couldn’t care less what happens to your assets.  However, you probably do care about your friends, you probably do care about your extended family – and if you die without having written a will it’s the Crown who will decide what happens to your assets, not your family and friends.  The Crown – meaning the government – will freeze everything at home and abroad if the overseas authorities haven’t frozen everything already.  Then they will battle it out with the overseas authorities to determine who gets what and what goes where.  As your estate’s value is eroded by all these ‘negotiations,’ so your family and friends will have no control whatsoever over who gets anything to remember you by.  That will be a cruel reality that they have to face – a cruel reality that you will make them face if you are selfish enough not to write a will.

Disaster Two

If you’re married you might automatically assume that you don’t have to really worry that much about writing a will because your spouse will automatically inherit everything and you would have left it all to them anyway.  Well actually no, that’s not necessarily the case.  If you’re an expat you’ll be living in a nation with different inheritance laws to those in the UK and those laws could kick in and see your estate handled completely contrary to your wishes.  Even in countries as geographically close to us such as France there are different laws of succession that do not automatically ensure your spouse will inherit if you’re married.  So if you want your spouse to inherit you have to write a will.

Disaster Three

If you’re in a same sex relationship and have entered into a registered civil partnership and assume that your partner will therefore inherit automatically, you are sadly mistaken.  Not only is the legality of such a union totally disregarded and ignored in some countries, but at best your partnership will be seen as a marriage and even then that doesn’t automatically mean your partner will inherit.  See Disaster Two for what could happen if you don’t get a will in place protecting your loved ones.

Disaster Four

If you are unmarried and living with your partner, did you know that an unmarried partner or non-civil partner has no automatic right to your inheritance at all?  Instead your parents or siblings could inherit perhaps, and you never know whether they will do the right thing and ensure your partner is protected and looked after.  They could lose not only you, but their home as well if you don’t look after them.

Disaster Five

And finally, if you have children you have a moral obligation to write a will to protect their interests.  If you don’t you have no way of knowing how the law will treat them.  In some countries they will receive your entire estate and your spouse or partner will receive nothing.  But in other countries your entire estate could be frozen for months or even years whilst the probate process plays out – and in the meantime your children could be made homeless.  If this sounds like a ridiculous scenario it is not – in Dubai, if you die without a will all your assets can be frozen for up to 18 months.  That means even the money in your bank account will be inaccessible to your spouse to use to look after your children.  And that applies even if the bank accounts were in joint names.  What’s more, if you were sponsoring your children to be with you in Dubai when you died, they will have 30 days to get out of the country when you die.  So you have to have a will to protect them – don’t you?

As you can hopefully see from the above, which are all real life potential scenarios, if you care about anyone at all in your life, you owe it to them to get a will written.  If you don’t it won’t be you who decides how they are looked after when you’re gone. 

There’s even a will writing service available for expatriates now – it takes into account the laws of the land you live in as well as the laws of your nation of domicile, and it abides by the terms and conditions of the Society of Will Writers and works in accordance with the Society’s regulations.  Therefore it isn’t even difficult for you to get your will written now is it?  Contact Wills for Expatriates .com to find out more about their service and to get the ball rolling.