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    • Spain
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    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

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  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
  • Conferences

    Upcoming Events

    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Argentina Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

    Learn More About This Event
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    Learn More About This Event
    PRE-REGISTER
    • MORE EVENTS

    Contact Our Events Team

    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
    1 (888) 627 8834
    From Outside North America:
    1 (443) 599 1221
    Working Hours
    Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

    Unlock The World

    • Access Your Library

    Overseas Havens Reports

    • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

    Conference Kits

    • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

    Lahardan Books

    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
    Global Property Advisor Global Investment Opportunities

    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

  • My Library
Live and Invest Overseas
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Home Lifestyle

The Importance Of International Estate Planning

What Happens If You Die Overseas?

by Lief Simon
Jan 13, 2023
in Lifestyle
0 0
Building in Paris, France.

Adobe Stock/BRIAN_KINNEY

What happens to your assets overseas when you die?

None of us likes to think about dying… but today I’ll ask your indulgence.

My father passed away just before Christmas. He didn’t have assets overseas and he tried to make a plan for what he owned in the States. He prepared a do-it-yourself will that didn’t get recorded properly and at least one original page can’t be found.

As a result, despite his effort, his estate is going through probate intestate, meaning a lot more work for my brother, the executor.

My situation is more complicated, and I’m trying to make sure my kids have an easier time of it than my brother is having right now.

Step #1. Make Sure Your Heirs Know What They’re Working With

For the past few years, I’ve been working to consolidate assets into fewer entities. I keep the family updated on what is owned where and how at an annual meeting.

We held the most recent Family Meeting last week. This one was more formal. I prepared a PowerPoint.

“This is worse than school!” my son Jackson, a recent NYU graduate, remarked when he saw that my presentation included 54 slides.

As our kids get older and understand the complexities better, they have more questions. They asked one in particular again and again:

“Who can help us with that property?” they wondered.

“I’ve included a slide with contact details asset by asset at the end. Be patient, please,” I told them.

Our meeting went on for nearly three hours. Jackson told me I should have built in breaks, like his NYU professors did for their classes.

Keeping your heirs apprised of what assets you have and where they are located seems logical, but I know some people don’t.

Tell your kids where things are… real estate holdings and also bank accounts. A bank can make an account dormant after as little as three months of inactivity… and the state can end up with the money if the account sits dormant too long.

That’s step one… to make sure your heirs know what they’re working with.

Step #2. A Will

You may need more than one depending on where your assets are held, but you want at least one in the jurisdiction where you’re residing. Even with the will, your heirs will have to go through probate, but a will makes the process easier, faster, and cheaper.

Some jurisdictions will honor a U.S. will, which can be registered after your death. Panama is one such place. However, it can be faster and easier to have a will in each jurisdiction where you own property. Just make sure the kids know where the originals are and how to connect with the attorney who drafted each one.

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Step #3. Entities

One of the overriding questions related to estate planning has to do with entities. Do you need one?

They come at a cost. The upside is that they can eliminate probate in one country when the assets in that country are held in an entity based in another country.

When I explained this plus and minus to an attendee at a conference recently, he replied to say, “Ah, the kids are on their own. They can figure things out.”

If you don’t care about making the probate process as painless as possible for your heirs, you probably don’t need to worry about housing your assets in an entity.

Many of my properties are held by a single entity. The entity doesn’t die when I do so my heirs (my kids) will be able to access the properties it holds immediately… and sell them if need be.

Probate will still be necessary in the country where the entity is located, but that process will be far simpler than having to deal with probate in multiple countries in multiple languages.

Other strategies used in the United States for avoiding probate won’t work or don’t exist in many other places in the world.

Joint Tenants With Rights of Survivorship is a good example. In a civil law country (which is more than 75% of countries around the world), if a property is held in both names of a married couple and one spouse dies, the other spouse doesn’t automatically inherit the deceased spouse’s share.

It has to go through probate… and, unless a local will is in place, specific inheritance rules in the country where the asset is located likely will apply. Typically, that means some percentage of the asset will go to the current spouse and some percentage to the children of the deceased spouse.

The next level of estate planning involves a trust or foundation, which eliminates any question about who gets what. The problem with a trust is that it’s a common law entity. Many civil law countries won’t recognize it. That’s where foundations come in. They are the civil law equivalent of a trust.

The more assets you hold overseas, the more complicated your estate becomes. I recommend considering the inheritance and legacy aspects of any asset when you acquire it… and then regrouping on your portfolio overall at the start of each New Year.

Thus my Family Meeting with the kids last week.

I have to give it to them. They stuck it out for all 54 slides.

Lief Simon
Editor, Offshore Living Letter

Tags: Estateestate planningInternational Estate Planning
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Lief Simon

Lief Simon

Lief Simon has lived and worked in 7 countries on 5 continents and traveled to more than 75 countries. His real estate investment career began with a $5,000 down payment on a three-flat building in Chicago. Less than three years later, Lief sold the building for a leveraged return of 3,000%—$150,000 in profit after closing costs and commissions.

From there, he turned his attention overseas and has bought property in 24 countries including France, Croatia, Portugal, Ireland, Belize, Spain, Argentina, Cyprus, Romania, and beyond. Thanks to his decades-long career as a global property investor, Lief has built a multi-million-dollar portfolio that includes rental properties, significant land holdings, and 7 personal residences.

Lief has established residency in 3 countries and acquired a second passport from Ireland.

In 2008 Lief and wife Kathleen Peddicord made the most important investment of their lives—a 215-acre oceanside finca, known as Los Islotes. There, on Panama’s largely undiscovered Veraguas coast, they’ve installed underground electricity, water, and internet and built a forever family home that sits at the heart of their ultimate vision: a gold standard private residential community for those in search of a true safe haven escape.

Lief’s latest book, “Cowboy Millionaire—The New American Pioneer,” collects all the wisdom he has learned in three decades of living and investing outside America.

He offers advice on international diversification in his twice-weekly Offshore Living Letter and monthly Simon Letter dispatches. For real estate investment opportunities, check out his monthly Global Property Advisor service.

If you’d like to meet Lief in person, join him for one of our upcoming in-country conferences. You’ll find further details here.

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HOME

Top Countries

  • Spain
  • Portugal
  • Panama
  • Belize
  • Colombia
  • Cyprus
  • Mexico
  • France
  • Montenegro

Best For:

  • Health Care Abroad
  • Retirement Living
  • Cost Of Living
  • Investing in Real Estate
  • Establishing Residency
  • Gun Ownership
  • English Speakers
  • Safety
BROWSE ALL COUNTRIES

Budgets

How Much Will It Cost
To Live Overseas?

Super Cheap

  • Chitré, Panama
  • Santa Marta, Colombia
  • Phuket, Thailand
  • Dumaguete, The Philippines

Cheap

  • Medellin, Colombia
  • Boquete, Panama
  • Kyrenia, Cyprus
  • Hua Hin, Thailand
  • The Algarve, Portugal

Affordable

  • Valencia, Spain
  • Cascais, Portugal
  • Las Terrenas, The DR
  • Pisa, Italy
  • La Rochelle, France
  • Mazatlán, Mexico

Luxury

  • Ambergris Caye, Belize
  • Kotor, Montenegro
  • The Panama City Beaches
  • Paris, France

Resources

Global Living

  • Living & Retiring Overseas
  • Raising A Family Abroad
  • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
  • Offshore & Diversification

Making Money

  • International Real Estate
  • Banking
  • Employment
  • Investing
Meet Our Experts

Real Estate

Overseas Property Alert 

 

How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams

VISIT SITE

Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

 

Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

READ MORE

Explore Our Latest Posts

 

Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

EXPLORE

Conferences

Live and Invest In Spain Conference

VALENCIA, SPAIN Sep. 17-19, 2025
Learn More About This Event

Offshore Wealth Summit

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA Oct. 15-17, 2025
Learn More About This Event
PRE-REGISTER

Argentina Workshop

VIRTUAL Nov. 13, 2025
Learn More About This Event
PRE-REGISTER
MORE EVENTS

Contact Our Events Team:

Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
1 (888) 627 8834

From Outside North America:
1 (443) 599 1221

Working Hours
Monday – Friday 08:00 am – 17:00 pm EST.

Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

Store

Overseas Havens Reports

  • Expats' comprehensive destination guides

Conference Kits

  • Hours of coverage  from our latests conferences

Lahardan Books

  • Titles on living and investing around the world

Services

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  • The Simon Letter: Wealth Protection Insights
  • Global Property Advisor: Global Investment Opportunitites
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