What European succession law does not solve

The European notaries’ study on the application of the Succession Regulation (MAPE, 2023)

My professional insights · Lyudmil Karaulanov · 6 min read

Published: 1 October 2026 · Version 1.0

The context

The EU Succession Regulation has applied since 17 August 2015 and unifies the rules on cross-border succession in 25 Member States. The regulation itself obliges the European Commission to present a report on its application by 18 August 2025. In preparation for that assessment the Council of the Notariats of the European Union, in partnership with the chambers of notaries of Germany, Lithuania, Malta and Hungary and with the European Network of Registers of Wills, carried out the MAPE project and published the results in 2023.

The study is one of the largest on the subject. It involved 2,103 notaries from 22 countries, more than 60 notaries with proven experience in cross-border cases, and 15 national chambers of notaries. This is the view of the people who every day turn the European rules into specific succession cases.

The central thesis

The overall assessment is positive. Notaries welcome the principle that succession is governed by one single law, that of the last habitual residence of the deceased, as well as the possibility for everyone to choose the law of his or her nationality. The regulation has made their work easier.

The study, however, also names three persistent difficulties. The first is registration: a certificate of succession issued in one state is often not accepted by the land register of another as a sufficient basis for entering the heirs’ rights. The second is the absence of a definition of “habitual residence”, the concept on which the whole system rests. The third is that it cannot be established whether proceedings concerning the same estate have already begun in another state. Just under 40% of notaries have come across such parallel proceedings.

What is often overlooked

The popular account presents the European Certificate of Succession as an heir’s passport that opens every door in the Union. The data show otherwise. The certificate has not yet become the standard solution. It is used mainly in complex cases, while in ordinary ones national documents are preferred. Its certified copies have a short period of validity, they often have to be translated, and its content is frequently not sufficient to identify precisely the properties, the heirs, the shares and the assets of the deceased.

Something else is overlooked too: one notary in two has had doubts as to whether the regulation applies to a particular case at all. If the professionals hesitate, the owner should not count on his heirs finding their own way.

A reading for the owner

Cross-border successions are only around 5 to 6% of all the succession cases that notaries handle. But it is precisely in that small portion that families with property, accounts and shareholdings in more than one country are found. For them the conclusion is clear: the regulation answers who is an heir and which law applies, but it does not answer what has been inherited or where it is.

Preparation must therefore begin in one’s lifetime. The choice of applicable law is an instrument that the regulation provides, but that is rarely used deliberately. The documents required for entry in the land register of each state can be checked in advance. And the map of assets remains irreplaceable, because no certificate contains it. We develop this line in the analysis “Where is the key to the vault?”.

The limit of applicability

The regulation does not govern everything. Property relations between spouses are subject to separate European rules. The tax consequences remain entirely national. Of particular importance to business owners is that the regulation expressly does not cover matters governed by company law, such as the clauses in the articles of association that determine what happens to the shares on the death of a partner. There the company’s statutes or articles of association are decisive, not succession law. Assets in countries outside the Union also remain outside this system.

The point of instability

What this concept means →

The point of instability arrives when the family assumes that Europe has already solved the question of cross-border succession. The heirs then discover, one thing after another, that the certificate does not open the land register, that the bank wants a translation, that the certified copy has expired and that parallel proceedings are under way in another state. The regulation has simplified the law. It cannot take the place of preparation.

This material is of a general analytical nature and does not constitute individual legal, tax, financial or investment advice.