Do you own property in Croatia but live in or are a citizen of another country? In such situations, an international will provides a reliable and internationally recognized solution and allows you to arrange your last will clearly, lawfully, and with effect beyond the borders of the Republic of Croatia.
This form of will is designed precisely for people who live, work, or own property in multiple countries. Its greatest advantage is legal certainty and recognition in a large number of countries, regardless of language, nationality, or the place where the will is made. An international will reduces the risk of disputes, facilitates the inheritance process, and ensures that your last will is respected—where it matters most.
The Inheritance Act (Official Gazette No. 48/2003, 163/2003, 35/2005, 127/2013, 33/2015, 14/2019) regulates the subject matter of the international will in Articles 151–166. An international will is a regular, public, and written form of will. As with a public will (or any other form of will), the following requirements must be cumulatively met for it to be considered valid: 1) the testator must have reached the age of 16, and 2) must have testamentary capacity. At the same time, at the moment of declaring the last will, there must be no defects of consent on the part of the testator, and the will itself must satisfy the requirements regarding the legally prescribed form, under the conditions determined by law, depending on the type of will the testator makes. Although an international will must be made in written form, there is no obligation to use an official language or a specific manner of writing; therefore, it may be made in any language and script, handwritten or in another manner (typewriter or computer).
Therefore, exclusively at the request of the testator, persons authorized by law may, in accordance with the provisions of the Inheritance Act, give any written will the form of an international will, including a will they themselves did not draft (in this way, a handwritten will, a written will made before witnesses, and other types of wills may become international wills). It is always a matter of an individual testator, because the form of an international will cannot validly be given to so-called joint wills of two or more testators (Article 152 of the Inheritance Act).
An international will made in this way will be valid as to form, regardless of the place where it was made and where the property of the testator covered by the will is located, as well as regardless of the nationality, domicile, or residence of the testator, provided that the legally prescribed procedure for making an international will has been observed. If the conditions necessary for a will to have the character of an international will are not met, or if the international will is null and void, it will nevertheless be valid as another type of will (handwritten will, written will before witnesses, etc.) if the conditions required for the validity of that other form of will are met (Article 151 of the Inheritance Act).
Conflict-of-law rules are defined as rules for determining the applicable law. In relationships with an international element, the question arises as to which law should be applied to regulate a specific relationship—domestic or foreign law. The answer to this question is provided precisely by conflict-of-law rules. Thus, they do not directly (immediately) resolve a relationship with an international element, but do so indirectly, i.e., by referring to the applicable domestic or foreign law that should be applied to regulate the relationship in question. Unilateral (incomplete) conflict-of-law rules refer only to the application of domestic law and are rare in Croatian legislation. Bilateral (complete) conflict-of-law rules refer to the application of not only domestic but also foreign law.
The legal order of the Republic of Croatia, through its positive regulations or conflict-of-law norms, recognizes the validity of form also for those forms of wills that were made in accordance with the rules of certain foreign inheritance law systems. By the Act on the Adoption of the Act on the Resolution of Conflicts of Laws with Regulations of Other Countries in Certain Relations, the Act on the Resolution of Conflicts of Laws with Regulations of Other Countries in Certain Relations (“Official Gazette of the SFRY,” Nos. 43/82 and 72/82) was adopted as a republican law. Article 30 of the Act on the Resolution of Conflicts of Laws with Regulations of Other Countries in Certain Relations prescribes the following: “For inheritance, the applicable law is the law of the state whose citizen the deceased was at the time of death. For the capacity to make a will, the applicable law is the law of the state whose nationality the testator had at the time of making the will.”
It can be concluded that Croatian conflict-of-law rules rather broadly recognize the validity of wills made in accordance with the rules of many foreign inheritance law systems, which nevertheless does not exclude the possibility that a will may still be made in accordance with the rules of a legal system not recognized by the aforementioned Act.
From the possibility of the occurrence of the aforementioned problem arose the idea to unify the rules on the form of wills, which would be achieved by introducing certain legal rules into the legislation of each individual state that agrees to it. Years of efforts by the international community to regulate in the same manner the matter of wills with a foreign element were realized in 1973, when a conference was held in Washington at which the participating states adopted the Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the Form of an International Will. The participant in the conference and signatory to the Convention at that time was the SFRY, which ratified it in 1977 (Act on the Ratification of the Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the Form of an International Will, Official Gazette of the SFRY – International Treaties and Other Agreements, No. 3/77). The Convention entered into force on 9 February 1978 and bound all signatory countries to incorporate into their laws the rules on the international will in accordance with the Annex, which forms an integral part of the Convention. The Republic of Croatia, as the legal successor of the former SFRY, continued to apply the Convention by including provisions on the international will in the previously applicable and currently applicable Inheritance Act.
Persons authorized to make an international (as well as a public) will are (in the Republic of Croatia): a) a judge of a municipal court, b) a court advisor at a municipal court, c) a notary public, and d) (abroad) a consular or diplomatic-consular representative of the Republic of Croatia (Article 32, paragraph 2 of the Inheritance Act). A judge and a court advisor of a municipal court, as well as a notary public, may make this type of will also for foreigners, while diplomatic-consular representatives of the Republic of Croatia abroad make an international will only for Croatian citizens. When a notary public makes an international will, this is done at their official seat and for the area in which they perform their service, regardless of whether it is made in their office premises or outside them, which is also possible. If a notary public makes an international will outside the borders of the Republic of Croatia, such an act would not have the force of a notarial act.
Persons authorized to make an international will are also authorized and obliged, under the provisions of the Inheritance Act, to perform actions that are within the jurisdiction of the court in connection with the safekeeping, revocation, and registration of international and other wills, which primarily refers to registration in the Croatian Register of Wills, which will be discussed in more detail later.
Testamentary disposition in the form of an international will does not include the drafting of the text of the document itself; rather, it is an act that temporally precedes the act of testamentary disposition. Therefore, the text of the will may be prepared in advance by the testator himself or by another person, including the authorized person themselves. Thus, there is no obstacle for the authorized person to draft the testator’s will in the form of a public will, giving it the character of an international will, except that even then the drafting of the text will not be an integral part of the testamentary disposition. The act of testamentary disposition itself begins at the moment when the document in which the testator has expressed their last will is submitted to the competent authorized person, so that through their action that document becomes a public document—an international will.
The identity of the testator will be established by the official person making the will on the basis of a valid identity card or passport, if they do not personally know the testator by name, and if that is not possible, then through two identity witnesses, as also provided by the Notaries Public Act. Unlike the situation in which a public will is made, in the making of an international will the establishment of the testator’s identity is not part of the act of testamentary disposition, although it must certainly be done.
The entire act of testamentary disposition, in addition to the participation of the authorized person, also takes place in the presence of two witnesses, who must be both absolutely and relatively capable for that role, as in the making of a public will or a written will before witnesses. This means that witnesses may only be persons who are of legal age, who have not been deprived of legal capacity, and who know and are able to read and write. The testator’s descendants, adopted children and their descendants, ancestors and adoptive parents, relatives in the collateral line up to and including the fourth degree, the spouses of all these persons, as well as the testator’s spouse, may under no circumstances act as the authorized person or be witnesses to a public will.
The first essential condition in this type of testamentary disposition is that the testator declares before the authorized person, in the presence of two witnesses, that 1) the document they have written and submitted for confirmation (or the document drafted by the official person) is their will and that 2) they are familiar with its contents. The testator is not obliged to disclose the contents of the will to anyone (neither to the authorized person nor to the witnesses), but may do so if they so decide.
Thereafter, the testator signs the will or, if they have already signed it earlier, acknowledges and confirms the signature on the will as their own. If they are unable to sign, it is sufficient to state the reason for this to the authorized person, who will record it on the will, and the testator may also request another person to sign the will on their behalf.
The will is then signed by the witnesses and the authorized person. The signatures of the authorized person, the testator, and the witnesses on the international will and its accompanying certificate are exempt from any certification or similar formality, but the competent authority may, if necessary, verify the authenticity of the signatures. All signatures are placed at the end of the will, and if the will consists of several pages, the testator must sign each page (or, if they are unable to do so, the person signing on their behalf or the authorized person themselves), with each page being marked with a number.
The authorized person places the date of signing at the end of the will, without which the form would not be valid. The date of the will is considered to be the day on which it was signed by the authorized person, and even if some date is already written on the will beforehand, the day of testamentary disposition is considered to be the day the will is signed by the authorized person.
By fulfilling all the aforementioned conditions, the document acquires the character of a public document in the form of an international will. The authorized person is obliged to issue the testator a certificate of the making of the international will, which proves that the will has a valid form of an international will and that all the steps described above have been observed. The content of the certificate is prescribed by Article 160 of the Inheritance Act, and it is issued in a precisely prescribed form, i.e., template. One copy of the certificate is retained by the authorized person, and the other copy is given to the testator.
The fact of the making of a will, as well as its safekeeping with an authorized person and its proclamation, will be recorded in the Croatian Register of Wills (Article 68, paragraph 1 and Article 148, paragraph 8 of the Inheritance Act). The content of the will itself is not entered into the register, nor may the will be deposited there. The Register of Wills is maintained by the Croatian Notarial Chamber in accordance with the provisions of the Ordinance on the Croatian Register of Wills. Upon the testator’s request, data are submitted to the register by competent courts, notaries public, attorneys, and persons who have made a will, and all types of wills may be entered. Notaries public are obliged, after making a public/international will, to register its existence in the register. Deletions, revocations, and other changes are permitted. It is particularly important to note that foreign nationals cannot register a will in the register.
The Croatian Register of Wills is a public register from which data may not be made available to anyone before the testator’s death, except to the testator or a person specially authorized by them. The fact that a will is not recorded in the Croatian Register of Wills, nor deposited anywhere in particular, does not prejudice its validity.
In the course of conducting probate proceedings, the official person conducting the proceedings is obliged to request information from the register on the existence of a will, since it is legally mandatory to discover the existence of a will.
If there is no mandatory regulation on the safekeeping of a will, the authorized person will ask the testator whether they wish to make a statement regarding the safekeeping of the will. In that case, and at the express request of the testator, the place where they intend to keep their will will be recorded in the certificate.
The testator may keep their will themselves or entrust it for safekeeping to another natural or legal person. Whether they will do so or not depends exclusively on their will. A will in any written form (including a public/international will) may be entrusted for safekeeping, since the will then has the form of a (public) document.
If the testator or a person authorized by them wishes to entrust the will for safekeeping to a court, a notary public, or abroad to a consular or diplomatic-consular representative of the Republic of Croatia as bodies competent for the safekeeping of wills, they are obliged to accept it for safekeeping regardless of who drafted the will, and to proceed in accordance with the rules of the Inheritance Act. Before accepting the will for safekeeping, the identity of the person submitting the will for safekeeping will be established according to the rules for establishing the identity of the testator, except when that person is personally known to the authorized person or known by name. The will is submitted for safekeeping either open or sealed. The authorized person accepting the will for safekeeping will draw up a record thereof, in which they will state how the identity of the person who submitted the will for safekeeping was established and will enter data, knowledge, and observations on all circumstances that might be important for assessing the validity of the will. If the will was submitted for safekeeping by a person authorized by the testator, that power of attorney will be attached to the record.
The will received for safekeeping will be placed in a special envelope and sealed, and a certificate will be issued that the will has been received for safekeeping. The court, notary public, or consular or diplomatic-consular representation of the Republic of Croatia that received the will for safekeeping will keep it with special care and separately from other files and will, without delay, send a notification thereof to the Croatian Register of Wills. Entrusting a will for safekeeping to a competent authority does not give greater force or value to the document that the testator calls a will merely by virtue of the fact that it is in safekeeping— a document that is not a will will not become a will by that act, will not become valid if it is not, nor will a private will become a public one.
A will that is in safekeeping will be returned to the testator at their request, as well as to the testator’s authorized representative who has a notarized power of attorney for that purpose. A record will be drawn up on the return of the will, stating the manner in which the identity of the person to whom the will is returned was established. If the will is returned to an authorized representative, the power of attorney will be attached to the record and kept by the person who returned the will. The body that returned the will to the testator or their authorized representative will, without delay, send a notification thereof to the Croatian Register of Wills.
A request for the return of a will does not imply the revocation of the will itself. Namely, only when the testator actually revokes the will in one of the ways provided by law (by a declaration made in any form in which the will itself may be made by law, by destruction of the will, and other ways) does the will cease to exist.
After the death of the testator, the person who is in possession of the testator’s (now the decedent’s) will is obliged to submit the will to the court for its proclamation, or to notify the competent court of where the will is located. When drawing up the death certificate, the registrar will include in its content the information obtained from the person who provided the data for drawing up the death certificate as to whether a will exists, whether it is written or oral, and where it is located. It is desirable to submit the will to the court together with the death certificate, and if the will was submitted to the registrar themselves, they are obliged to submit it to the court for proclamation. Thus, a will is proclaimed only after the testator has died or has been declared dead; the will of a living testator is not proclaimed.
When the court/notary public conducts probate proceedings and proclaims the will, this is done by opening the will, reading it, and drawing up a record thereof. This is done in the presence of two adult witnesses, who may also be heirs themselves. By proclaiming the will, the necessary publicity is given to it, thereby creating an opportunity for all interested persons to obtain the necessary information about the content of the will, and the existence of that opportunity is considered sufficient to conclude that they are indeed acquainted with the existence of the will and its content. In this way, it is made possible to discuss whether this is truly the decedent’s will and whether it is valid (which is mostly excluded in the case of a public will), and what inheritance-law effects it produces.
