I have inherited something, or I want to leave it properly

This is the area we know best and the one where people wait longest before asking, usually years. Delay makes every one of these harder and more expensive, because records go missing, people move away and the people who remember what happened die.

I have inherited property abroad and nobody can help

This is the single most common thing people come to us about, and the reason it feels impossible is that it needs two countries to work at once and most professionals only handle one.

The usual shape. You deal with the estate where the person died and got probate or its equivalent there. Then that has to be recognised in the country where the property is, which often means official translation, legalisation or an apostille, and sometimes a fresh local process rather than a recognition of yours. Then the property has to be transferred into your name in that country's register, which can require you to be present or to appoint someone locally with a power of attorney.

What makes it hard in practice is rarely the law. It is that the title was never updated after an earlier death, so the property is still in a grandparent's name and three generations have to be proved. Or there are relatives in occupation. Or the documents were lost.

Start by finding out exactly whose name is on the register today. Everything else follows from that. We work with firms in Pakistan, India, Cyprus, Greece and elsewhere who do this specific work.

There are several heirs and we cannot agree

Very common, and it usually is not really about the asset. It is about who did the caring, who was closer, and things said years ago. Knowing that helps, because it tells you the legal route alone will not settle it.

What the law does say is that in most countries co-heirs own it together and none of them can sell without the others, which is why these situations freeze for years. Some countries let one owner force a sale through the court, and some do not. Some have fixed shares that cannot be varied whatever anyone agrees.

The practical ways out are usually one of four. One heir buys out the others at a valued price. It is sold and the proceeds split. It is physically divided, where that is possible. Or it is kept and any income is shared under a written agreement so the argument does not restart every year.

Mediation resolves these far more often than litigation, and costs a fraction. Court should be the last resort, because it can consume more than the asset is worth and the relationships do not survive it. We can connect you with lawyers and with mediators who handle family property disputes.

My will only covers my UK assets

Then there is a good chance part of your estate is not going where you think it is.

Different countries decide inheritance by different rules. Some follow where you were domiciled. Some follow where the property sits, which is common for land and buildings. Several European countries have forced heirship, meaning a fixed share must go to children or a spouse whatever your will says. An English will that leaves everything to one person can be partly overridden by that.

There are two workable approaches. One will drafted to cover everything, which avoids gaps but needs a drafter who understands every country involved. Or separate wills in each country, each dealing only with the assets there. Separate wills are often cleaner and faster to administer, but they must be drafted so that they do not accidentally revoke one another, which is exactly what goes wrong when they are written by people who do not know about each other.

Also worth checking: whether any inheritance tax applies in more than one country and whether a treaty prevents you paying twice.

We can put you in front of firms who draft cross border wills rather than a local solicitor who will only cover one side.

I want an Islamic will that also works here

This is usually achievable in England and Wales, because there is broad freedom to leave your estate as you choose. You can set out shares that follow Islamic inheritance principles and have them drafted so they are valid and enforceable under English law.

A few practical points that decide whether it works. Anything you own jointly with a right of survivorship passes outside the will entirely and goes straight to the other owner, so joint property often defeats the intention unless it is restructured. Pensions and life policies usually pass by nomination and not by the will at all. And a will drafted purely as a religious statement without proper legal form may not do what was intended.

There is also the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, under which certain people can apply to court for provision from an estate regardless of what the will says. It does not prevent an Islamic will, but it is a real consideration and worth addressing in the drafting.

If you also hold assets in a country with its own inheritance rules, that needs coordinating at the same time. We can connect you with solicitors who draft these regularly and understand both sides.

My parent's business is stuck and I work full time

This is a situation with a clock on it, and the clock is the reason to act even though you have no time.

When the owner of a small business dies, the business often cannot function. Bank accounts freeze. Nobody has authority to sign. Customers drift. Staff leave. Value falls every week, and most of what is lost is lost in the first few months.

The immediate questions are who has authority right now, which depends on whether there is a will and who the executors are; whether the business can keep trading in the meantime, which depends on its structure; and whether anyone is currently able to pay the staff and the suppliers.

Getting formal authority takes time, so the practical move is usually to appoint professionals to hold it together while that happens, rather than trying to do it around your own job. That costs money and it almost always costs less than the value that disappears otherwise.

Be realistic early about whether you want to run it, sell it or close it, because each needs different steps and choosing late narrows the options. We can introduce you to people who step into exactly this situation.

How do I pass the business to my children?

The mistake is treating this as a tax question. It is a management question that has tax consequences, and doing the tax planning first is how families end up with an efficient structure around a business their children cannot run.

Start with whether they want it, asked properly and separately, not assumed. Then whether they can run it, which is a different question and needs an honest answer. Then how it is handed over, which works far better in stages over years than in one moment.

The hard part is usually fairness between children where one works in the business and others do not. Equal shares in that situation reliably create conflict. Approaches that work better include giving the business to the one who runs it and balancing the others with different assets or with life insurance, or splitting control from income so one runs it while all benefit.

Once the plan exists, the structuring follows. Reliefs for passing on a trading business exist in many countries but usually have conditions about how long you held it and what the business does, and they change with governments.

We can connect you with succession and tax advisers who start from the family rather than from the structure.

Last reviewed 2026-09-17. This page explains how things usually work so you know what to ask. It is not immigration, legal, tax or financial advice, and nothing on it is a recommendation. TRADhEiR makes introductions to independent firms. We are not a firm of solicitors, we are not registered with the Immigration Advice Authority, and we hold no financial services permissions. The firm you choose does the work and is accountable for it. This site uses cookieless analytics that counts visits but does not identify you or follow you anywhere else.