Annette Houlihan, founder of Carey Suen, shares a case study from nearly 40 years working with expatriate families on cross-border estate planning. Names and identifying details have been changed.

A client came to me reluctantly. His wife – a Filipino national living with him in Hong Kong – refused to engage with the process. For her, discussing death, wills, and the distribution of assets carried a deep cultural taboo. She believed that putting such things in writing invited misfortune. She had declined to sign anything for years – the classic will delay.

This is not unusual. In my experience working with expatriate families across Asia and the Middle East, cultural attitudes towards death and documentation are one of the most significant and least discussed obstacles to proper estate planning.

I spent time with both of them. I explained not the legal mechanics first, but the practical reality of what the absence of a plan would mean for her and for their children. I made the conversation about protection, not about death. Eventually, she agreed.

We drafted a will. We also established a family trust – a living trust – into which his principal assets were placed, with named beneficiaries and clear distribution instructions.

Six months later, he died.

The Will Delay That Left a Family Waiting 17 Months

John – as I will call him – was American. His wife was Filipino. They had two stepchildren. They had been married in Samoa.

That last detail mattered enormously.

When his estate entered probate in Hong Kong, the court required verification of the marriage before it could proceed. A marriage certificate from Samoa had to be authenticated – a process that required the document to travel from Samoa to Beijing, then from Beijing to Hong Kong, then through the court’s verification process.

The will delay lasted 17 months. From the date of John’s death to the date the will’s assets were finally distributed: 17 months.

His wife and stepchildren needed money within weeks. School fees did not pause. Rent did not pause. Food and utilities did not pause.

What the Trust Did While the Will Delay Continued

The family trust operated differently. Because John’s assets had been placed into the trust during his lifetime, they did not form part of his estate for probate purposes. The trust did not need to wait for court verification of the Samoan marriage certificate. It did not need to wait for anything.

When the named trustee received notification of John’s death and the relevant documentation, the trust assets were released to the named beneficiaries. The family had access to funds within days.

This is the essential practical difference between a will and a trust that most people do not understand until they are sitting in the middle of a probate process. A will tells the court what you want. A trust does it.

Without the trust, John’s family would have faced 17 months without reliable access to the money they needed. That is not a bureaucratic inconvenience. For a family with school fees and monthly costs, 17 months of financial uncertainty is a crisis.

Why Will Delay Is a Predictable Risk for Expatriates

John’s case was not exceptional. Expatriate families routinely carry documentation complexity that domestic estates do not. Marriages in one country, registered in another. Children born in a third. Assets held across four or five jurisdictions.

The most common forms of will delay in estate planning for expatriates include the following.

Cross-jurisdictional marriage verification, as in John’s case. If you married outside the UK – and particularly in a country with limited diplomatic infrastructure – expect this to add months to probate.

Foreign asset verification. If you own property or financial assets in a jurisdiction where courts do not automatically recognise foreign grants of probate, a separate local grant may be required. This adds cost, time, and administrative burden.

Disputed domicile. If HMRC or a foreign tax authority challenges your domicile status, this can hold up the entire estate until the dispute is resolved.

Missing or outdated documents. If beneficiary nominations on pensions, insurance, or investment accounts are out of date, the institutions holding those assets may freeze them pending legal clarity.

None of these delays are inevitable. All of them are manageable with proper planning.

The Contingency Gap: What Families Actually Need

When someone dies, their family’s immediate financial needs do not disappear. In many cases, they increase. Funeral costs. Travel. Legal fees. Ongoing household expenses. School fees.

If the deceased was the primary earner, the gap between death and the release of estate assets can be financially catastrophic – even for families with substantial wealth on paper.

A living trust addresses this directly. Assets held in trust are not frozen during probate. They are accessible immediately, according to the trust’s instructions, without court involvement.

Life insurance with a named beneficiary serves a similar function. The policy pays out on production of a death certificate, independently of any probate process.

The will delay in John’s case lasted 17 months. The trust covered his family’s needs throughout. Without it, the outcome would have been profoundly different.

What This Means for You: Avoiding Will Delay in Estate Planning

If you are a British expatriate with a will drafted in the UK before you relocated, the document may be valid. But it may also be inadequate for the complexity of your current circumstances.

Does your will reflect your current assets, including those held outside the UK? Have you named a guardian for minor children? Are your beneficiary nominations on pensions and insurance current? Would a trust alongside your will ensure your family has immediate access to funds?

Estate planning does not have to be complex. But it does have to be thorough. The difference between a plan that works and one that fails is rarely the scale of the estate. It is the quality of the preparation.

John’s family survived the 17-month will delay because the trust was in place. Without that preparation – which took a few hours to arrange – the outcome for his wife and stepchildren would have been significantly harder.

Do not leave your family to find out the hard way how long probate takes.

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Annette Houlihan is the founder of Carey Suen. To review your arrangements or explore what a trust structure could mean for your family, book a consultation at careysuen.com.