It is a rigid will, it cannot be argued with, and for a surprising number of families it produces very nearly the outcome they would have chosen anyway. The trouble is that it decides who administers the estate, and that is where the delay lives.
Die intestate, meaning without a valid will, and your estate is distributed under the Wills and Succession Law, Cap 195. There is no discretion in it. The law sorts your surviving relatives into four classes, works down them in order, and stops at the first class with anybody in it.
Your surviving spouse sits outside that ladder and takes a share alongside whichever class inherits. How large a share depends entirely on how close the surviving relatives are.
Here is the part most people get wrong. Because Cyprus already reserves most of an estate for close family through forced heirship, dying intestate is far less dramatic here than in a country with full testamentary freedom. In England, no will can mean the wrong people inherit. In Cyprus, the statutory portion would have gone to those same relatives regardless. What you lose is the quarter you could have directed, and a great deal of time.
Each class excludes every class below it. One surviving child means the deceased's siblings and parents take nothing.
Grandchildren step into the share their parent would have taken. If anybody in this class survives, the ladder stops here.
Excludes classes 2, 3 and 4Reached only where there are no children or grandchildren at all. Descendants of a sibling who died first take that sibling's share.
Excludes classes 3 and 4The generation above your parents, where nobody nearer survives.
Excludes class 4Cousins and further out. Beyond the sixth degree the law stops looking, and where there is no spouse either the estate passes to the Republic.
The last rungThe surviving spouse always takes something. How much turns on which class is inheriting alongside them.
| Who else survives | The spouse takes | The rest goes to |
|---|---|---|
| Children or their descendants | An equal share with each child | The children, in equal shares |
| Parents, siblings, grandparents or other ascendants | One half | That class, between them |
| Only relatives to the sixth degree | Three quarters | Those relatives |
| No relative within the sixth degree | The whole estate | Nobody else |
Read the first row carefully, because it is the one that catches people out. The spouse does not take a half, or a third, as a fixed rule. They take a share the same size as each child's. A spouse with two children takes a third. A spouse with four children takes a fifth. The more children, the smaller the surviving spouse's share becomes, which is the opposite of what most people arriving from Northern Europe assume.
Enter who survives you and this applies the Cap 195 order. It runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
Descendants of a child or sibling who died before you step into that person's share, which this simplifies. Cap 195 as at 2026. Property held jointly, and anything passing outside the estate, follows its own rules and is not counted here.
Send us what you have entered and we will come back to you on what it means, including whether a will would change it. No newsletter and no mailing list, just a reply from someone who works on these.
Where there is a will, the executor named in it applies to the court for a grant of probate and can begin. Where there is not, somebody has to be appointed administrator instead, and the heirs must agree on who that is before the application can be made.
That single requirement is what turns a straightforward estate into a slow one. Agreement is easy in a close family and close to impossible in a fractured one, and until it is reached nobody can deal with the bank, the Land Registry or the tax file. The estate simply sits.
The probate and administration page sets out the sequence and the realistic timescales for both routes.
If you own property here, the practical case for a Cyprus will has very little to do with tax. There is no inheritance tax in Cyprus either way. It is about who is allowed to act, and how quickly. What a valid Cyprus will requires is short enough to read in one sitting.
Tell us what you own and who is in the family, and we will set out plainly what would happen as things stand and what a short will would change.
Request a consultationChecked against primary legislation and official publications on 5 August 2026.
Two simplifications are worth naming. Descendants of a child or sibling who died before you step into that person's share, which the calculator does not model. And several published summaries state that the surviving spouse takes one half without noting that this applies only where there are no descendants: where there are children the spouse takes a share equal to each child's, which gets smaller the more children there are. This page is general information, not tax, legal, immigration or investment advice, and individual circumstances change the answer.