One life,
two legal systems
The apartment needs testamentary coverage — but whose? Home-country wills, US situs wills, and the coordination between them decide how your heirs' year actually goes.
Before you read on
- General information as of August 2026. Estate documents need counsel in every relevant jurisdiction — this chapter orients, never drafts.
- Companion to the estate-tax, inheritance, and death-checklist chapters.
- The document set in Section 4 is the practical deliverable.
Point 1Does the home will reach New York?
The starting principle: New York generally recognizes foreign wills validly executed under home-country law — the Japanese notarial will, the English will, the German testament can govern the Manhattan apartment. Recognition, though, is not convenience: the foreign will's probate here (the ancillary process the checklist chapter maps) requires authenticated copies, sworn translations, expert affidavits on foreign law, and the months these consume.
The silent-failure modes: home wills drafted without the US asset in mind (residuary clauses sweeping it into structures that misfire against US tax), civil-law forced-heirship mechanics colliding with common-law expectations, and the will that works but slowly — validity and efficiency being different virtues the planning below separates.
Point 2The situs will option
The specialized tool: a US situs will — covering only the American assets, drafted by New York counsel, probated here directly without foreign-law proof — running parallel to the home will that governs everything else. The gains: months of ancillary friction removed, New York-optimized drafting (executor powers, tax elections), and heirs dealing with one system per asset rather than both per document.
The coordination discipline that makes it safe: the wills must not revoke each other (the standard boilerplate 'revoking all prior wills' is the classic cross-border accident — each will's revocation clause carves out the other), the dispositive schemes must harmonize (the same heirs receiving compatible shares), and every subsequent amendment anywhere must re-check the pair. Two wills badly coordinated are worse than one slow one — the counsel-in-both-countries rule is absolute here.
Point 3Executors, guardians, and the practical seats
The executor choice is logistics, not honor: the US co-executor (family member resident here, the attorney, an institution) converts the checklist chapter's months of long-distance friction into local process. The letter of instruction — informal, non-binding, updated freely — carries what wills should not: account locations, the data room's access, the professional team's contacts, the funeral wishes that need finding before any probate.
| Seat | The cross-border reality |
|---|---|
| Executor for US assets | US-resident or institutional co-executor smooths everything |
| The foreign executor alone | Serves, but bonds and logistics multiply |
| Trustees where trusts exist | The structure chapters' succession design |
| Guardianship clauses | Minor heirs' provisions across borders |
| The professional contacts | Named in the letter of instruction, not the will |
| Digital and access provisions | The data-room chapter's estate handoff |
The executor's practical burden is the checklist chapter's timeline — choose someone positioned to actually run it.
Point 4The complete set, assembled
The cross-border owner's estate documents, as a checklist: the coordinated wills (home plus situs, or the deliberately-single will chosen with eyes open), any trust instruments the structure chapters concluded, durable powers of attorney for incapacity (property decisions during life's other emergencies — the closing chapters' POAs' permanent cousins), healthcare directives per home practice, the letter of instruction, and the beneficiary designations on US accounts (which pass outside wills entirely — and override them when forgotten).
The maintenance rhythm joining the library's calendars: review at life events (marriages, births, purchases, the second property), at law changes flagged by either country's counsel, and otherwise every few years. The estate chapters' arc completes here: the tax planning (treaties, structures), the process planning (probate avoidance, the checklist), and now the documents that execute it — the three layers your heirs will either thank you for, or reconstruct at retail prices during the worst year to be doing paperwork.
Usually validly — New York recognizes properly-executed foreign wills — but slowly: ancillary probate with translations and foreign-law proof. Validity and efficiency differ; planning addresses both.
A US-only will covering American assets, probated directly by New York counsel — removing months of friction. It must be coordinated with the home will so neither revokes the other.
Someone positioned to run the checklist chapter's process — US-resident family, your attorney, or an institution as co-executor. The honor is logistics.
Badly, when uncoordinated — mutual revocation boilerplate is the classic accident. Counsel in both countries, and re-checks at every amendment, are absolute rules.
Survivorship titling, trust assets, and US account beneficiary designations — which override wills when forgotten. The designations audit belongs in every review.
Life events, purchases, law changes, and otherwise every few years — the estate calendar the library's other chapters share. Stale documents execute stale intentions.
RELATED GUIDES
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Important notice
The figures on this page are general information as of August 2026 and do not represent an offer, a quote, or a guarantee of any transaction terms. Reinvent NY does not provide legal, tax, or investment advice. Confirm anything material with an attorney and a CPA before you act on it. Nothing here is a solicitation to invest, and no return is promised. Real estate brokerage services are provided through R New York.