Will advice

Not sure if this really belongs in Money Matters, but I see there's another thread about wills in here, so I guess it's OK. My wife ("mrskreme", she posts on here more than I do) have been back in the UK for two months now. We are both US Citizens. She is a USC by birth and here with Indefinite Leave to Enter. I am a USC by naturalization but British by birth. We  wrote wills in the US and had them filed with a solicitor over there before we left, due to advice we read on this site. That will contains all of our UK information (addresses of guardians for the children, etc) so is that good enough in case something should happen to us while we're living in this country? Or do we need to create separate British wills? I don't know if any of the terminology is different or whatever. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

The US Wills can indeed be probated in the UK.  You need to address whether you have reverted to your domicile of origin within the UK, or whether you remain domiciled in whichever US State you lived in the most.

If you are now domiciled within the UK then you can only leave Mrs K £55,000 plus the nil rate band before UK Inheritance Tax becomes payable.  You may want your Wills to address this.

The only other significant issue I can quickly think of might be if your US Wills created living trusts, in which case you may have US trust filing to consider.

Thanks for such a quick reply. Yes, I am now domiciled in the UK, so how would we address that in the will? Not that I currently have £55,000 to leave, but I just ask out of interest!

You'll already realise that from an income & capital gains tax perspective having different domiciles (yours withitn the UK, and hers within the US) presents you with different answers on your annual tax returns (you are taxable on worldwide income in both the UK and the US while she is only taxable on income arising in or remitted to the UK). 

From a Will writing perspective given that there might be UK tax payable if you died first, but not if she died first, you might consider this an insurable risk and just buy sufficient whole life insurance to cover the possible tax bill.  This is often the simplest, but I would discuss this with your solicitor too...

Thanks again!