I've done a couple of searches and can't find anything like this question, so am hoping someone can help. We (Swiss partner & me) need to get Swiss wills drawn up. Because my husband was living outside of CH for a long time, we don't know what kind of professional to go to for this service. Can anyone advise?

thanks for any insights you might have

Just found this: http://www.moneybasics.ch/mb/en/situ...ng_a_will.html

Does that help?

There are multiple answers to this. If you have not applied for the Swiss citizenship then you can apply for your will to be according to American law. If not, ie you have a little red book, then you need to write this according to Swiss law which also means you need to respect pflichtanteile ie percentages of your estate which must be given to relatives. Here you need to be very careful and I would advise taking legal advice for this. Seeing as the legal responsible for signing off on non-personal, non-publically verbal wills is a notar, I would suggest discussing with your husband what you want to do and then visiting one.

Hi
On the same subject - does anyone know if a will drawn up in Switzerland is valid in the UK? (we are both British and recently married out here so previous will we wrote in UK is now invalid)

Thanks
JK

Oh no it is not!

As foreign citizens you can request that your estate in Switzerland is treated according to English law. If, and it should, your "old" UK will has the sentence that this will be treated or governed according to English Law then it is fully valid under English law here.

Richard, another question/clarification please...

1. I have a Scottish will and it say "...under Scottish law..."
2. I live in Switzerland.
3. I'm British

Do I need to do anything else?
Eg:
Do I need a will here that says "...under Scottish law..."
Or is the fact that my UK will says "...under Scottish law..." is enough?

And we expats can substitute "English" or "Canadian" etc for Scottish above

Cheers
S

Thread resurrection...

Any answers please?

Well it goes to show what has happened to the forum in the last 12 months if I completely miss one like this...

Anyway thank you for the resurrection here the answers.

In short as long as neither of you are Swiss then you can choose under which law you want your will to be governed as long as it is the national law of one of you. The Swiss authorities do not need to be informed. If one of you is Swiss then the situation is somewhat different and you need a Swiss notar to notarise this.

So just to really spell it out here: does this mean if my husband and I are American and British respectively, and our current (and hugely expensive) will was drawn up in Luxembourg last year, it is in fact invalid now we live in Switzerland? I'm gutted....

Hi Richard

Does that also apply to property you own here - ie we are from the UK but own property here when we die the property disposal / transfer etc will come under UK law. Ie will my children get it if thats what I say in the UK - given the inheritance tax in the UK and lack of it (or so I belive) can we get a Swiss will and work with that - my youngest child was born here and we plan to stay so they should get swiss passports in a few years (I think)

We need to get a will drawn up.... somewhere....

Woooo

Tax on property remains at source ie where the property is. As soon as you get a Swiss passport then your will must be notarised and election to have the estate covered under a foreign law. If you have a Swiss will then there are laws that cover how this is governed and you will need to seek a lawyer to have a contract drawn up to split your assets. This is in effect to protect you from the situation where your children can lay claim to their 25% of the estate and force a house sale in order to get the money. Note the money is due on death hence the potential problem here.

Of course if only your children get a passport that is not a problem

Where the will was drawn up is not so relevant as under which law it was governed but no all is not lost you can still use the will and simply change the jurisdiction or have it notarised.