Choice of Applicable Law under the EU Succession Regulation: Some Issues, Problems and Questions - Private Client Business

It is now widely understood that the broad effect of the EU Succession Regulation (EU SR) is to provide that a person’s estate both movable and immovable is universally to be subject to one law being that of the last habitual residence. However, the law of nationality may instead be chosen by a testator, a professio juris, as the law to govern the succession as a whole.

Many existing wills may already include a valid implied choice or be deemed to include one. In practice there are six different such choices, with possibly different effects.

Russell-Cooke consultant Richard Frimston examines in Private Client Business the operation of the explicit and implicit choice of law provisions, the questions of historic private international law, the extent to which renvoi is excluded, the position in states with territorial units in which different legal systems apply, and the potential implications of Brexit.

Choice of Applicable Law under the EU Succession Regulation: Some Issues, Problems and Questions is available to read in the latest print edition of Private Client Business or on the Lawtel database via subscription. 

Richard is a consultant in the private client team. He advises clients in relation to their estate planning, wills, probate and tax planning issues and offers Notary Public services. Areas of expertise include cross-border estates and international private law issues.