An estate stops being routine the moment a second country is involved. The good news is that the machinery exists and is old: the questions are which of three separate routes applies, and what the tax position is now that domicile no longer decides it.
Foreign assets still belong in the valuation
Foreign assets sit in two different totals, and mixing them up distorts the forms. They belong in the estate value for Inheritance Tax, but the gross value for probate is worked out by subtracting assets owned abroad, such as overseas property or money in foreign bank accounts (GOV.UK, Applying for probate: what is probate, checked 1 November 2026).
Valuing an asset and being able to deal with it are different problems. What the bank in France or the land registry in Cyprus will accept is a question of that country’s law, and it is usually where a local lawyer or notary becomes unavoidable.
Within the UK, nothing needs resealing
This is the point most often got wrong, and it saves time and money. A grant of probate or letters of administration from England and Wales has, without being resealed, the like force and effect in relation to property in Scotland as a confirmation (Administration of Estates Act 1971, section 3, checked 1 November 2026).
It works in the other direction too. Where a person dies domiciled in Scotland, a confirmation granted there is, without being resealed, treated for the purposes of the law of England and Wales as a grant of representation (Administration of Estates Act 1971, section 1, checked 1 November 2026).
So a Scottish confirmation opens an English bank account, and an English grant deals with a Scottish house, with no extra application. Northern Ireland sits in the same scheme.
Resealing a Commonwealth grant
For grants from outside the UK, a Victorian statute does the work. Under the Colonial Probates Act, a grant made by a court in a country the Act applies to may be sealed by the court here, and are then of the like force and effect as if granted here (Colonial Probates Act 1892, section 2, checked 1 November 2026).
The procedure is set out in the probate rules. An application for resealing may be made by the person to whom the grant was made, or by somebody authorised in writing to apply on their behalf, and an Inland Revenue affidavit or account has to be lodged (Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987, rule 39, checked 1 November 2026).
Two practical notes. The rules require a copy of the will to be deposited where the grant sent for resealing does not include one (Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987, rule 39(5), checked 1 November 2026), and resealing cannot be done through the online service: HM Courts and Tribunals Service lists resealing under the Colonial Probates Acts among the cases that must be applied for on paper (GOV.UK, Apply for probate on paper as a practitioner, checked 1 November 2026).
Check the country before assuming, because the Act applies to designated territories rather than to the Commonwealth as a block, and the designations sit in separate Orders in Council. The probate registry handling the application will confirm whether a particular country’s grants can be resealed, and a solicitor dealing with cross-border estates will know the common ones.
Somebody who died abroad but owned something here
A separate rule decides who applies where the person died domiciled outside England and Wales. The registrar may order a grant to the person entrusted with the administration by the court where they died domiciled, or failing that, to the person beneficially entitled under that law (Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987, rule 30, checked 1 November 2026).
There is a shortcut where the English estate is land. Where the whole or substantially the whole of the estate in England and Wales consists of immovable property, meaning land and buildings, a grant may be made in accordance with the law that would have applied if the deceased had died domiciled here (Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987, rule 30, checked 1 November 2026).
Read that test carefully, because it is about the English estate being land, not about the worldwide estate being small. It is the difference between an application that follows familiar rules and one that needs evidence of foreign law.
A will made abroad can be valid here
A will does not have to follow English formalities. It is treated as properly executed if its execution conformed to the law where it was executed, or where the testator was domiciled or habitually resident at execution or death, or of a state of which he was then a national (Wills Act 1963, section 1, checked 1 November 2026).
Expect paperwork rather than argument. HM Courts and Tribunals Service tells practitioners that an application in respect of a foreign will must be made on paper (GOV.UK, Apply for probate on paper as a practitioner, checked 1 November 2026), and there is a dedicated form, PA19, for applying with a foreign death certificate that has not been translated by a licensed company (GOV.UK, Form PA19, checked 1 November 2026).
Watch for two wills. Where somebody made a separate local will for their foreign property, the later will can revoke the earlier one by accident, which is a drafting problem worth raising with a solicitor in both countries.
Inheritance Tax: residence replaced domicile in 2025
The old question of where somebody was domiciled no longer decides whether foreign assets are taxed. GOV.UK states that from 6 April 2025 the domicile and deemed domicile rules were replaced by new long-term UK resident rules (GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax if you’re a long-term UK resident, checked 1 November 2026).
The test is arithmetic. You are a long-term UK resident in a tax year if you were UK tax resident for the previous 10 consecutive years, or for a total of 10 years or more within the previous 20 (GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax if you’re a long-term UK resident, checked 1 November 2026). HMRC’s manual ties that to the statutory test for whether foreign assets are in scope (HMRC IHTM47020, checked 1 November 2026).
The consequence runs both ways. Somebody who is not a long-term UK resident is taxed here only on assets situated in the UK, while somebody who is long-term resident is taxed on worldwide assets, wherever they have moved to. Leaving the UK does not end it immediately, because residence can be retained for a number of years afterwards on a scale set by how long you were here.
Being taxed twice
Where another country taxes the same asset, relief exists rather than a rebate. GOV.UK lists Inheritance Tax conventions with six countries: Ireland, South Africa, the USA, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, plus older Estate Duty treaties with France, Italy, India and Pakistan that work under different rules (GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax: double Taxation Relief, checked 1 November 2026).
Outside those, unilateral relief applies: HMRC gives credit against Inheritance Tax for tax charged by another country on assets sited there, limited to the lower of the two amounts (GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax: double Taxation Relief, checked 1 November 2026). Keep the foreign tax receipts, because the credit is evidenced by them.
The order to work in
Deal with the English estate first: value everything including the foreign assets, settle the Inheritance Tax position, and get the grant. Then take the grant, or its resealed equivalent, to the country where the asset sits, and take local advice there about what that country requires.
Build in time. Cross-border estates run in years rather than months, and the two things that stall them are untranslated documents and a tax position nobody has pinned down. Our pages on the Inheritance Tax forms and inheriting from abroad cover the tax side in more detail.