If you own assets in more than one country, a single will is probably not enough. For families navigating estate planning in NYC with property, accounts, or investments abroad, one of the most important and least discussed questions is how to structure multiple wills across different jurisdictions so they work together rather than compete against each other.
This blog is for foreign nationals, expats, dual citizens, and any New Yorker who holds assets outside the United States. By the time you finish reading, you will understand when a separate local will is necessary, how multiple wills must be coordinated to avoid costly mistakes, and what risks arise when that coordination is done poorly or not at all.
The good news is that a well-structured multi-will plan can make cross-border estate administration far smoother for your heirs. The challenge is that it requires deliberate drafting, communication across attorneys in multiple countries, and ongoing maintenance as your circumstances evolve.
Do You Need a Separate Will for Each Country Where You Own Assets?
For most people with assets in multiple countries, the answer is yes. Each country has its own rules about what makes a will valid, how it must be executed, and who has authority to administer an estate under it. A U.S. will, however carefully drafted, may not meet the formal requirements of another country’s legal system, may face significant delays in being recognized by foreign courts, and may be partially or entirely overridden by local succession laws.
A separate local will in each jurisdiction allows local probate to proceed immediately, without waiting for apostille certification, translation, or a foreign court’s decision on whether to honor a New York document. That efficiency alone can save your heirs months or years of administrative burden.
There are situations where a single will may be sufficient. If your foreign assets are held exclusively in common law countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, or Australia, where foreign wills are more readily recognized, the case for a separate local will is less urgent. If foreign assets consist of financial accounts rather than real property, beneficiary designations or joint ownership structures may transfer those assets outside of probate entirely, making the will irrelevant for those assets. And for clients with property in multiple EU member states, the EU Succession Regulation offers a coordination tool that can reduce the number of separate wills needed, which we will cover in more detail below.
For the majority of clients with real property abroad, however, a local will is strongly recommended. Real property succession is almost universally governed by the law of the country where the property is located, and local probate must be completed regardless of what a foreign will instructs.
How Do Multiple Wills Work Together Without Creating Conflicts?
This is where careful drafting becomes essential, and where the most consequential mistakes happen.
Most New York wills contain a standard clause that revokes all prior wills. In a domestic context, this is routine. In an international context, it can be catastrophic. For example, if you have a German will governing your Munich apartment and later execute a new New York will with a standard revocation clause, that New York will may be interpreted under German law as revoking the German will entirely. This leaves your Munich property to pass under German “intestacy” rules rather than your stated wishes.
The solution for this is to include precise limiting language in every will. Each will in a multi-will structure must clearly state:
- What it covers: the specific assets, asset types, or jurisdiction it is intended to govern.
- What it does not revoke: an explicit statement that it does not revoke any prior or concurrent will governing assets in other specified jurisdictions.
- Its relationship to other wills: ideally with a direct acknowledgment that parallel wills exist and are intended to operate concurrently.
Beyond revocation, each will must be substantively consistent with the others. If your New York will leaves your residuary estate to one set of beneficiaries and your French will contains provisions that implicitly conflict with that disposition, the result can be litigation and outcomes that do not reflect your intentions. The drafting attorneys in each jurisdiction must be aware of and coordinate with each other throughout the process.
Executor appointments also require attention. A U.S. executor may not have legal authority to act in France or Germany without additional local appointment procedures. Each will should appoint an executor who has standing and practical capacity to act in that specific jurisdiction, or at minimum address how cross-border executor authority will be established.
For clients with property across multiple EU member states, Brussels IV provides a genuine planning opportunity. By making an explicit election in their will to have the law of their nationality govern their entire EU estate, a U.S. citizen with property in France, Italy, and Germany can potentially use a single instrument to govern succession across all three countries. This does not eliminate local probate procedures, but it can reduce the number of separate wills needed for EU assets. It is a nuanced tool that requires careful drafting, and its interaction with forced heirship rules in certain EU countries remains a subject of ongoing legal debate.
What Are the Biggest Risks of a Poorly Coordinated Multi-Will Plan?
Even when each individual will is legally valid in its own jurisdiction, a poorly coordinated multi-will structure can create problems that are difficult and expensive to unwind. The most consequential risks include:
Unintentional revocation as described above is the most common and most damaging. It happens regularly when clients update their U.S. will without informing their international attorneys, or when U.S. attorneys draft without knowledge of existing foreign wills.
Gaps in coverage arise when the geographic or asset-specific limitations in one will are drawn too narrowly, leaving certain assets with no applicable will. Those assets then pass under intestacy law in the relevant jurisdiction, which may distribute them in ways you would never have chosen.
Conflicting dispositions occur when two wills make inconsistent provisions for the same or related assets. Resolving these conflicts typically requires court proceedings in one or more jurisdictions, adding expense, delay, and uncertainty for your beneficiaries.
Forced heirship overrides represent a risk that exists regardless of how well the wills are coordinated. In countries like France, Germany, and Italy, certain heirs have mandatory legal entitlements that no will can override. A client who intends to leave their Italian vacation home entirely to one child while excluding another may find that Italian law overrides that intention completely. Understanding which jurisdictions impose these rules and planning around them proactively is a separate layer of planning that the wills themselves cannot solve.
Outdated wills in one jurisdiction create risk when circumstances change. A divorce, the birth of a child, or a significant change in asset values in one country may make a local will obsolete while wills in other jurisdictions remain current. Because multi-will structures require coordination across multiple attorneys in multiple countries, updates are more complex than revising a single domestic will, and clients sometimes allow one jurisdiction’s will to become stale without realizing the consequences. This is one reason why revisiting your full estate plan after any major life transition is especially important for families with international assets.
Tax inefficiency can result from wills drafted without full knowledge of each jurisdiction’s tax rules. A will that makes sense from a succession planning perspective may inadvertently trigger avoidable inheritance taxes or miss available exemptions. Each will should be reviewed not just for legal validity but for tax efficiency under the applicable local law.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my New York will automatically cover assets I own in other countries?
Not automatically. Whether your U.S. will is recognized abroad depends on the laws of the country where the assets are located. In many cases, local probate must still be completed under local law, and some countries may not honor a foreign will without significant additional steps. Real property in particular is almost always governed by the law of the country where it is physically located.
What happens if my wills contradict each other?
Conflicting wills can result in litigation, court proceedings in multiple jurisdictions, frozen assets, and outcomes that do not reflect your intentions. The most dangerous scenario is unintentional revocation, where a new will inadvertently revokes an existing will in another jurisdiction through a standard revocation clause. Careful coordinated drafting across all jurisdictions is the only reliable way to prevent this.
How often should I update my international wills?
Any major life change warrants a review of all wills in your multi-will structure, not just your U.S. will. This includes divorce, remarriage, the birth of a child, the death of a named beneficiary or executor, a significant change in asset values, or a move to a new country. Because updates require coordination across multiple attorneys, it is worth establishing a regular review schedule rather than waiting for a triggering event.
