Cars and inheritance

Dear Sir, About one year ago, we signed the inheritance acceptance document in the presence of a Spanish Notary.

We inherited an apartment and a bank account in the Costa Blanca, which we now use for short breaks.

We decided to sell the car that came with it all, and we now realise that it was not included in the inheritance, so we cannot sell it, as it is not registered in my name.

We have fallen out with our solicitor over this, and don’t know what to do now, because the car is more than a burden than an advantage, as we seldom come to Spain, it is old, and required quite a lot of maintenance, and we have decided that we would be better off renting on our visits. Answer Your solicitor can only know what you tell him and if he doesn’t know there is a car registered in the name of the deceased, he would not have included it in the inheritance deeds. Perhaps he didn’t ask the question, or you just didn’t think of telling him about the car, or you forgot.

Whatever happened, you now need to go to the Notary again and sign a document called Adición de Herencia, to include the car. Depending on the value of the estate and the car, you may have to pay a bit more inheritance tax. Once this has been done and the inheritance tax paid (if any), you can then go to a gestoría and have the car registered in your name and then you can proceed with the sale.

You will need to take to the notary’s office the inheritance acceptance deeds you signed one year ago, plus your passport and NIE number, together with the car documentation. Presumably, the notary’s office will then arrange for an appointment with you for another day, as it is unlikely that they will be able to do it all on the same day. Unlikely, but possible.

As you can see, when organizing an inheritance, it is important to name all the assets that the deceased owned including the value of those assets, especially if they are registered assets, such as bank accounts (even if there is very little in the account on the date of death), cars or any other vehicles.

Jewellery is not often named, as their ownership is not registered.

However, and oddly enough, when calculating inheritance tax, one has to add 3% of the total value of the estate, probably to cover this jewellery, house contents etc. If there is a very valuable work of art, this should be valued and then included in the deeds, more than anything so you can show title to the ownership if you ever decided to sell this artwork.

I would advise you to eat some humble pie and ask the solicitor who acted to you before to deal with this. It is not very complicated or time consuming, but it is important that it is done correctly, especially the payment of the tax. If this is not done correctly, you will not be able to register the car in your name and therefore not be able to sell it. Please send us your queries either by email, or letter indicating that you wish your letter and reply to be published in the Costa Blanca News. You may either send these directly to our offices or to the Costa Blanca News.

This column is intended for informative purposes only and we strongly advise any readers to seek professional advice prior to taking any action.