Making a will in Cyprus

A will or testament is a legal document that includes a person's wishes regarding the division of their assets after their death. This process is governed by the Wills and Succession Law, Cap. 195.

Wills in Cyprus follow the rules set out in Cap. 195. This page explains who can make a will, the formal requirements for a valid one, how much it costs, and how a will can be changed or revoked.

Anyone who owns assets in Cyprus, including any movable and immovable property, and is interested in making a will based on Cyprus law, should consult a lawyer. To be valid and executable in the future, the will must meet specific criteria provided by local law.

How to make a will in Cyprus, step by step

1. Confirm capacity. The person making the will must be at least 18 years old and of sound mind.
2. List the assets and the people who will receive them, keeping within the disposable portion limits set by Cap. 195.
3. Draft the will in writing and in clear terms. A lawyer usually prepares it to avoid ambiguity.
4. Choose an executor to carry out the will. The executor later applies to the Court for probate in Cyprus.
5. Sign the will at the foot, in front of two witnesses who are present at the same time.
6. Have both witnesses sign in the testator's presence and in each other's presence.
7. Register the will at the District Court for safe custody. This step is optional and does not affect validity.

Who can make a will in Cyprus

Any person aged 18 or over who is of sound mind can make a valid will in Cyprus (Article 22).

Article 21 lets that person leave by will all or part of the disposable portion of the estate.

The conditions for a valid will in Cyprus

For a will in Cyprus to be valid, it must be written and executed in a specific way (Article 23 of the Law) and clearly express the testator's final wishes. The will must meet the following requirements:

• First condition: The will must be signed at the end or bottom by the testator or by another authorised person in the testator's presence. An illiterate person, instead of a signature, may put his mark or seal.
• Second condition: The testator signs, or acknowledges the signature as theirs, in the presence of at least two witnesses who are present at the same time.
• Third condition: The witnesses sign the will in the presence of the testator and of each other. No particular wording of attestation is needed.
• Fourth condition: If the will consists of more than one sheet of paper, every sheet is signed or initialled by the testator, or on the testator's behalf, and by the witnesses.

By signing below the signature of the testator, witnesses only confirm that the testator signed in their presence. They do not need to know the contents of the will.

A will must comply with these formalities to stand. Draft it as precisely as possible, because the intention to give a specific asset must be clear.

A will that does not meet Article 23 is invalid, and witnesses cannot save it by confirming it orally. The law gives one way back. Under Article 23A, added in 2015, any interested person can ask the Court to correct an error or omission in the formalities, or a clerical or arithmetical error in the text. If the Court is satisfied and finds it just, the will stands as corrected from the date it was signed.

Who can witness a will

A witness must be 18 or older and of sound mind. Article 24 adds that the witness must be able to sign their name. Under Article 25, a gift in the will to a witness, to that witness's spouse or to that witness's child is void.

The person who witnessed loses the gift, and the rest of the will stands. For this reason a beneficiary and their close family should not act as witnesses.

Which country's law applies: wills for foreign owners

For deaths on or after 17 August 2015, Cyprus applies Regulation (EU) 650/2012 to decide which country's law governs a person's succession. The default rule points to the law of the country where the testator had their habitual residence at death.

A testator may instead choose the law of a country of their nationality. The choice is made in the will, either in an express declaration or through terms that show it clearly. A person with more than one nationality may pick any of them, and the chosen law can be the law of a non-EU country. A later change of residence does not, by itself, cancel a valid will.

The forced heirship rules of Cap. 195 apply whenever Cyprus law governs the succession. That is the case when the testator was habitually resident in Cyprus at death and made no valid choice of another law, or when a Cypriot national chose Cyprus law.

A will made in another country can still be valid in Cyprus. Under Article 27 of the Regulation, a written will is valid in form if it meets the law of the country where it was made, the law of the testator's nationality, domicile or habitual residence, or, for immovable property, the law of the country where the property lies. The questions below cover English wills and the resealing of a UK grant of probate.

Owners with assets in two countries can keep two wills, one for each country. Each will must be drafted so that it does not revoke the other: under Article 37 of Cap. 195, a later will that expressly revokes earlier wills revokes them all.

Contesting a will in Cyprus

The heirs may ask the Court to set aside a will that was not executed in the form required by Article 23, was made without capacity, was signed under undue influence, or is forged. The grounds, the burden of proof, the eight-year time limit, and the court process are covered in our guide to contesting a will in Cyprus.

Cost of making a will in Cyprus

The cost of legal services for creating a will in Cyprus starts from €500 plus VAT (19%).

Safe custody and revoking a will

Any individual interested in forming a will must be aware that the original draft should always be kept in a safe location. The original will must be presented to the Court to enforce its terms.

Depositing it with the probate registrar of a District Court is one way to keep the original safe. The testator hands it over in person, in an envelope the registrar seals and enters in a register of wills. During the testator's lifetime the envelope is opened only with the testator's consent and in the registrar's presence, and the testator can revoke the will there by endorsing it.

A will may be revoked in any of the following ways

• By the execution of a later will by which the previous will is revoked.
• By a later will whose provisions conflict with the earlier one, to the extent of the conflict.
• By destroying it, for example by burning or tearing it, with the intention of revoking it. The testator can do this, or another person can do it in the testator's presence and on the testator's instructions.
• Under Article 38 of Chapter 195, a will is treated as revoked if the testator marries after making it. The birth of a child revokes it too, but only where the testator had no children when the will was made. Neither rule applies where the will shows it was made with that marriage or birth in view.

How much of your estate you can leave by will

As explained in Article 41 of the Cyprus Wills and Succession Law, each person may lawfully allocate the available portion of his/her inheritance by will to any person or organisation.

For example, when a person dies, leaving:

• a child or a descendant of a child, with or without a spouse, the available portion of the inheritance shall not exceed ¼ of the net value of the inheritance
• spouse or father or mother, but not children, the available portion of the inheritance shall not exceed ½ of the net value of the inheritance
• neither spouse, children, father, nor mother, the available part of the inheritance is the total of the inheritance.

The rest of the estate is the statutory portion, and it passes under the intestacy rules. Where the testator leaves a spouse and children, the spouse takes the same share of it as each child (Article 44).

If a person allocates by will more than his/her available portion based on the above requirements, then the portion that will be allocated will be decreased to match the above criteria.

If a person dies leaving a spouse but no children, neither father nor mother, then the spouse is allowed to inherit, if provided by the will, up to the total available assets of the deceased, which, for example, could be shares in a Company, bank account balances, property in Cyprus, cars and so on.

Outside the disposable portion set by Article 41, the forced heirship rules apply.

Getting a will drafted

A lawyer prepares the will in clear terms and arranges the signing before two witnesses. Our will and probate lawyers in Cyprus draft and register wills, keep the original in safe custody, act as executors, and apply for probate when the time comes.