Beneficary living abroad

I hope someone can help with this.

I am PR on an estate matter, we are just at the point of making first interim distributions on the estate. In the usual way we are doing bankruptcy searches on all beneficiaries to the estate to ensure we can pay out to them.
However one of the main beneficiaries has recently moved to Spain. She moved so Spain in August 2018 I have no reason to suspect that she is bankrupt but is there something that I should do protect against this unlikely circumstance. I don’t deal with Spanish law at all so I am unsure If they have an insolvency register that can be checked at all? Any guidance that people can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Lynsey Bashforth
Bashforth Young Solicitor

Hi Lyndsey,

Enforcement against a PR is always an issue when dealing with cross border matters, however to be safe rather than sorry you can instruct an agent like IWC to perform a foreign bankruptcy search for you. Make sure you do one here too!

Gary Kiely
Tollers

There’s a register too but I haven’t tried it personally.

https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_insolvency_registers-110-en.do

Gary Kiely
Tollers

I have used Caesura Credit management limited in the past for international bankruptcy searches who were really helpful.

Also, Andrew Eastwood of Legal4Spain deals with both (UK) and Spanish Wills and estates and he has been very helpful and knowledgeable He may be able to point you in the right direction if Spain have a national insolvency register.

Lisa Virdee
Pavilion Row

Hi Lynsey,

Sorry for the very late reply. Indeed, there is the “Registro Público Concursal” with listings of natural persons and companies going through insolvency processes, either court based or insolvency mediation. However there are processes missing due to the registry being a bit of a novelty for some courts, natural persons go to normal civil courts- not the specialized mercantile courts- which are.a bit green with this matters.

Also insolvency processes are announced through the national bulletin the “Boletín Oficial del Estado”. A Google search with the name plus BOE sometimes gets you to the announcement of the declaration of insolvency process.

Lastly there are some “registros de morosos” and “registros de impagados”, the former are registries in the hand of private companies and the latter is more or less a system for banks to determine the credit quality of a possible client. Both systems are of limited access.

Jose Garriga