New Year in Dubai and your expat Will?

New Year – time to make your Will?

New Year is approaching fast and Christmas is fading away again for another year. For many people it is a time to make New Year resolutions – things we know we need or ought to do that for some reason have not been done before.

Last Will & Testament : Dubai Expatriate Wills

If you are an expat living in the UAE getting your Will in place should definitely be on your list. There are so many sound reasons to have a Will and the reasons only increase if you are an expat in Dubai. You run the risk of dying intestate and that will ensure any assets you have in Dubai will be dealt with under local Sharia law provisions. if you didn’t know already that means that male beneficiaries are quite likely to get a greater share of the estate than females.

Please check the website out for more information about how you can make your expat Will quickly, easily and safely with Dubai Expatriate Wills.

If you started the Will-making process with us today you could have your Will ready for signing in a week or so. If you want to start now go straight to the Make Your Will page.

Christmas in Dubai – not prime Will making time!

Well it comes as no surprise that making your Will takes a back seat during the Christmas period, for expats in Dubai and the UAE.

How do I know that? Well, I can reflect on my experience, experience of others in the same line of business and the drop in the number of web searches logged by Google.

I am not surprised really because there is so much planning and shopping to do and for my part  I suppose having a lull in this festive season is not a such bad thing.

However the big drop in interest in making your Will during in December is closely followed by the busiest time of the year, the New Year.

I tend to think that this proves New Year resolutions are still in vogue.

So happy Christmas to all you expats in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and all of the UAE. Lets all look forward to a prosperous New Year and a getting your new Will in place. This  will give you that extra peace of mind that you need as an expat in the UAE and you can get rid of that niggle aboout being intestate and what might happen if your inheritance was dealt with under Sharia law provisions.

New Online expat Wills service launched

Dubai Expatriate Wills has now launched a specialised and unique Wills service for British expats in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the UAE at very competitive prices.

This should help make it even easier and cheaper to get this most important legal document drawn-up.

As well as being affordable, this service is customised to meet the individual circumstances of the expat client.

What makes this service unique is that it is online submission but the end result – your will- is drafted by a lawyer and not a piece of software with a where a’ one size fits all’ approach often applies.

See more about Dubai Wills online service

Dubai Divorce and your Will

Getting divorced in Dubai?

If you are an expat and divorce whether you are living in Dubai (or any of the Emirates e.g. Ajman)  or the UK your English Will remains valid. This is a surprise for many who think divorce makes the Will invalid.

However the effect of the divorce is that your ex-spouse is treated as if they had died. S/he can not benefit under the Will but for many people this means the Will is no longer in any sensible form and is useless or even worse.

Your Will is probably not the thing that is highest on your mind but it still an important thing to deal with whether you remain in Dubai, or Ajman, or not.  So do take a look at your Will if you are divorcing. You do not have to wait until after the decree.

Marriage can kill your expat Will

What it really means is marriage can make you intestate

Before all you Dubai expat men with Wills made under English law start wincing it basically means getting married invalidates your Will. That is unless you make it in contemplation of marriage and the correct wording is included in your Will.

So all those prudent folks who has a Will when they married might be Will-less which is the less formal way of saying you would be intestate if you died.

This is just another reason to have your Will reviewed or if you now know you haven’t got a Will or a valid one get yours drawn up pronto.

Sharia Compliant wills in the UAE?

Sharia Compliant wills in the UAE?

I don’t really get this idea. Now, it is settled law that a valid foreign Will will be recognised in Dubai, Abu Dhabi or other UAE Courts. So it actually has to be valid in the UK for a British national or UK domiciled UAE expat. So what is the Sharia compliant bit, as to my knowledge this forms no part of UK law for Wills. UK compliant sounds more important in my way of thinking.

If the Will deals with UAE real property there is a second question about the disribution under Sharia law rules but again if you ask for a Sharia distribution you will get it I guess.

So what is it about then? I suppose the best answer is to ask anyone promoting this idea to explain what it actually means. If anyone in Dubai or any other of the Emirates finds out please drop me a line.

Jungle Telegraph in Dubai

I recently had an enquiry about the validity of a UK Will in Dubai which is a straightforward sort of question, like many people would ask.

She later contacted me to say “she had heard that if her husband died and they didn’t have a local Will she would not be allowed to take her daughter back to the UK”. Something to do with local Sharia law perhaps?

In the circumstances I told her, amongst other things, that if she was in Dubai on her husband’s working visa she and her children would have to leave the UAE anyway assuming none of the parties are UAE citizen’s or Muslim. So with that caveat, what she had heard is not true.

It is however, another example of how information passes around the expat community and that it is not always reliable.