Cover of The British Expat Estate Planning Handbook by Jamie R. Lee

The British Expat Estate Planning Handbook

Wills, inheritance tax and probate when your life crosses borders

Jamie R. Lee

A will made in the UK stays valid after you move abroad, which is exactly why so few people look at it again. This book sets out the rules that decide what happens to a British expat's estate, and what changes when your life spans more than one country.

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Who it is for

Part one covers the rules every British expat runs into. Part two works through the situations that cause the most trouble.

  • The established couple abroad
    Married or in a civil partnership and settled overseas, with a plan made in one country that may not have survived the move to another.
  • The second marriage
    Children from an earlier relationship, a new spouse, and an understanding about who inherits that nobody wrote down.
  • The independent expat
    Single and internationally mobile, with a flat in one country, a pension in another and a beneficiary nomination filled in years ago.
  • Widowed and single parents
    One adult carrying all of it, with guardianship at the centre of the plan.
  • The sandwich generation
    Living abroad while parents in the UK start to need help, and holding their paperwork together from several time zones away.
  • LGBTQ+ families
    A marriage or civil partnership the UK recognises, in a country that may give it no legal effect.

What is inside

  • Introduction: what leaving Britain did to your will
    Why a valid will can still fail, and six questions that tell you whether yours is worth looking at.
  • Chapter 1: residence, domicile and the rules that moved
    The April 2025 switch from domicile to long-term residence, and how long the UK keeps following you after you leave.
  • Chapter 2: your will, and what quietly breaks it when you move abroad
    Marriage, witnesses, executors and lost originals: the ordinary ways a will fails.
  • Chapter 3: one estate, two legal systems
    Why movable assets follow your domicile and land follows the country it sits in.
  • Chapter 4: what happens if you do nothing
    The intestacy rules of England and Wales, and who they would actually reach in your family.
  • Chapter 5: lasting powers of attorney, the plan for while you're alive
    What happens if you lose capacity abroad, and how to put powers in place from overseas.
  • Chapter 6: trusts without the mystique
    What trusts can and cannot do for an expat family after the April 2025 changes.
  • Chapter 7: inheritance tax, the rules everyone starts from
    The thresholds, the exemptions and the seven year record of gifts your executors will need.
  • Chapter 8: inheritance tax for expats, what's in scope
    The long-term residence test applied to your own dates, and what stays in scope because it is UK situated.
  • Chapter 9: your assets, one by one
    Your UK home, a home abroad, pensions, offshore bonds, bank accounts, business interests, life insurance and digital assets, and how each one passes.
  • Chapter 10: when it happens, probate and estates across borders
    What your executors face, and where an English grant of probate travels.
  • Chapter 11: the established couple abroad
    Couples who left the UK together, and why two residence histories matter.
  • Chapter 12: the second marriage
    Providing for a spouse without disinheriting your children.
  • Chapter 13: the independent expat
    Planning when there is no spouse or children to fall back on.
  • Chapter 14: the widowed and single parents
    Guardianship, and the arrangements that cover the first afternoon.
  • Chapter 15: the sandwich generation, planning around elderly parents in the UK
    Running your parents' affairs from abroad while keeping your own in order.
  • Chapter 16: LGBTQ+ families and the recognition gap
    Where recognition in England and Wales stops at the border.
  • Chapter 17: other situations, and the rest of the UK
    Seven shorter profiles, plus succession in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
  • Conclusion: from knowing to done
    A four stage plan you can run over the next month.

What comes with it

  • Nineteen worksheets, one for each chapter. They are fillable PDFs you can type into on screen or print and write on, free at expatlegacy.com/handbook with the code printed inside the book.
  • The full source list. Every figure and legal claim in the book with its source and the date it was checked, open to everyone at expatlegacy.com/sources.

Read the introduction free

The introduction as a PDF: what leaving Britain did to your will, who the book is for, and six questions that tell you whether your own will is worth looking at. Enter your email and we will send it to you.

About the author

Jamie R. Lee runs Expat Legacy, an online will-writing service for British people living abroad, and also works as a financial planner. He wrote the handbook because the same problem kept coming up in conversations with British people overseas. The rules that decide what happens to an expat's estate sat in HMRC manuals, briefings written for lawyers and forum threads describing a tax regime that ended in April 2025, and nothing put them in one place, dated.

If you would rather have the will written than read about it, start here.

The book is general information about the law of England and Wales and UK tax as they stood in September 2026. It is not legal or tax advice. Expat Legacy is a will-writing service and not a regulated legal service.