If you are British and own property in Cyprus, the two things that decide what happens to it both moved recently. One in 2015, one in 2025. A will drafted on the older understanding of either can distribute an estate the law will not allow, or leave a bill nobody planned for.
For decades Section 42 of Cap 195 carved British owners out of Cypriot forced heirship. A person whose father was born in the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth country could dispose of their estate freely, regardless of domicile. In practice that gave most British owners of Cyprus property full testamentary freedom, and an enormous amount of advice was written on that basis.
Section 42 was repealed by Law 96(I)/2015, with effect from 3 July 2015. The repeal is prospective, so estates of people who died before that date are unaffected. Everybody else is now inside the forced heirship regime like any other owner.
The consequence is concrete. Where you leave a spouse and children, three quarters of your Cyprus estate is reserved by law and your will directs the remaining quarter. A will drafted in 2010 leaving everything to a spouse was perfectly effective when it was signed. Today it gets cut back.
The standard line for British expatriates was always that inheritance tax follows domicile, that domicile is extraordinarily hard to shed, and that leaving the country therefore does very little. It was good advice, and on 6 April 2025 it stopped being the test.
UK inheritance tax now follows long-term residence. You are a long-term resident, and your worldwide estate is within the charge, if you were UK resident for ten of the previous twenty tax years. Domicile no longer decides it.
Leaving does not end it at the door either. Departing leavers stay within scope for a tail of between three and ten years depending on how long they were resident. So the question for a British owner is no longer the almost unanswerable one about intention and permanent home. It is an arithmetic one about years, which is a great deal easier to plan around.
UK-situated assets remain in charge regardless. This change is about the rest of the estate, which for most people here means the Cyprus property.
Cyprus itself charges no inheritance tax and has not since 2000. Nothing above is a Cyprus liability. It is your own country reaching across, which is exactly why a tidy Cyprus will attached to an unresolved British position is the commonest mistake we see.
Losing Section 42 did not leave British owners without options. Article 22 of EU Regulation 650/2012 lets you elect, in your will, for the law of your nationality to govern your succession. English law permits full testamentary freedom. Cypriot law does not. For a British national, that election is the mechanism for stepping back outside forced heirship.
Two conditions matter. It must be made expressly, in the will, and in clear terms. It is never implied and it does not happen because everybody assumed it would. And its reach over Cyprus-situated immovable property is not treated uniformly by practitioners: some regard the election as decisive, others consider forced heirship to bite on local land regardless.
We set both views out rather than choosing one, because this is genuinely unsettled rather than merely complicated. What is not in doubt is that a will without the election gets Cypriot law by default. If you want the argument available at all, it has to be in the document.
The mechanics of a valid Cyprus will are on the making a will page, what happens with no will at all is on the intestacy page, and the full forced heirship shares are on the inheritance hub. The rest of the British picture, including the exit tails on income and gains, is on moving from the UK.
Tell us when your will was drafted, how long you were UK resident and who is in the family. We will tell you plainly whether the will still does what you think it does.
Request a consultationChecked against primary legislation and official publications on 5 August 2026.
One point on this page is genuinely unsettled rather than simplified: how far an Article 22 election reaches over Cyprus-situated immovable property, where reputable practitioners take opposing views. We set both out rather than choosing. The UK figures are the general rule and there are transitional provisions for people already non-resident before April 2025, so check your own position rather than reading across. This page is general information, not tax, legal, immigration or investment advice, and individual circumstances change the answer.