Of all the taxes there are, the Impuesto sobre Sucesiones (the inheritance side of Spain's inheritance and gift tax) is the one that fits worst with the moment it has to be paid. Six months after a death the family is usually still gathering certificates, and within that same period everything has to be valued, divided, assessed and paid. There is an extension designed for exactly this situation, and almost nobody requests it, because it has to be requested before the problem becomes visible.
The accrual date: the day everything starts running
| Transaction | Accrual date | Filing deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Inheritance and life insurance | The day the deceased died | Six months |
| Gift | The day the act or contract takes place | Thirty working days |
For acquisitions whose effect is suspended by a condition, a time limit, a fideicommissary trust or any other restriction, the tax accrues on the day that restriction disappears. It is the exception that turns up most often in wills with fideicommissary substitutions (where the estate must pass on to a second beneficiary) and in legacies made subject to a condition.
The six months of an inheritance
They are counted from date to date from the death. If someone dies on 14 March, the period ends on 14 September; if that day is not a working day, it moves to the next one that is. Within that period the return or self-assessment (autoliquidación, where the taxpayer works out and pays the tax), depending on what the competent region requires, has to be filed and the tax paid. Most regions operate a compulsory self-assessment system, so there is no point waiting for anyone to send anything.
What eats up the time is not filling in the form. It is gathering what comes first:
- The death certificate, the certificate from the Registro de Actos de Última Voluntad (the Spanish registry that records whether a will exists) and an authorised copy of the will, or, where there is no will, the notarial declaration of heirs.
- The certificate from the registry of life insurance contracts covering death.
- Bank certificates of balances and holdings on the date of death, which banks take weeks to issue.
- Land Registry extracts (notas simples) and cadastral references for each property.
- Evidence of debts and of deductible expenses.
A declaration of heirs where there is no will can take two months on its own. That is where the extension stops being a luxury.
The extension: six more months, and only if requested in time
The inheritance tax extension is granted for a period equal to the original one, another six months, and it has to be requested within the first five months of the filing period. After that day it can no longer be requested, even if weeks of the period remain. It is a silent deadline: nobody warns you, and a request filed in the sixth month is rejected out of hand.
The request is short but has compulsory content: details of the deceased and of the estate, the reason for requesting it, and the location and approximate value of the assets. It is filed with the competent office. If the tax authorities notify nothing within the following month, it is deemed granted.
The extension is not free: late-payment interest runs from the end of the original six months until the return is filed and paid. There is no surcharge, which is the important point, but there is interest. It is worth doing the sums: six months of late-payment interest on a bill of thirty thousand euros is a manageable figure; the surcharge for filing late without an extension, plus the trouble with a relief that depends on filing on time, is not.
The extension exists only for acquisitions on death. For gifts no extension is possible: thirty working days, and that is it.
Thirty working days are not thirty days
For gifts, the period is counted in working days from the day after the gift. Saturdays, Sundays and declared public holidays do not count, so thirty working days amount in practice to a good month and a half, and considerably more if Christmas or Easter falls within them. It is worth counting them on a calendar on the day of signing and noting the final date, because a gift is assessed in whichever region applies and local public holidays count.
When the period is suspended
If court proceedings over the estate are brought, whether a voluntary estate-administration procedure (juicio voluntario de testamentaría) or a contentious case, the period is interrupted and starts again from the day after the decision ending the proceedings becomes final. It has to be notified; it does not happen automatically. This is the route for disputed estates, where waiting without saying anything does produce a surcharge.
Meanwhile, the bank will not release the money
There is a practical effect that pushes harder than any surcharge. Banks do not let anyone draw on the deceased's balances without the succession documents and proof that the tax return has been filed, and the Land Registry will not record the change of ownership without a note showing it was filed. The estate is frozen: the flat cannot be sold, the mortgage cannot be cancelled, the fund cannot be cashed.
That paralysis also complicates paying the tax itself, because the money that would pay it is inside the frozen estate. The usual way out is to ask the bank to release the balance to pay the tax, which many banks allow by making the payment directly to the tax authorities, or to use the specific deferral that exists for these cases. What does not work is waiting: the freeze does not lift by itself and the surcharge keeps climbing.
If the deadline has passed
Filing late without anyone having asked triggers the late-filing surcharge (recargo) of article 27 of the Ley General Tributaria, Spain's General Tax Act, which rises month by month and is taken apart in how the surcharge is calculated, month by month. There are two further effects that people forget:
- The regional relief can be lost if the regional rules make it conditional on filing on time. That damage is usually much greater than the surcharge.
- The plusvalía municipal runs in parallel, the local tax on the increase in urban land value, with its own six-month period that can be extended up to a year at the taxpayer's request, and that request has to be made too. It is covered in the guide to plusvalía on inheritances and gifts.
Letting time pass in the hope that the tax becomes time-barred is a strategy that almost never works. The tax authorities have four years from the end of the filing period, and any action they take that the heir formally knows about restarts the clock; on top of that, neither will the bank hand over the funds nor the Registry record anything without the tax having been assessed, so the estate stays frozen. We explain it in the limitation period and what interrupts it.
When the tax is due and there is no money
Ley 29/1987, the Inheritance and Gift Tax Act, itself provides a specific deferral for assessments on death when the inventory contains no cash or easily sold assets sufficient to pay: it can be granted for up to a year, with late-payment interest. There is also payment in instalments over several years, with a guarantee. These are mechanisms specific to this tax, distinct from the general deferral under the Ley General Tributaria explained in deferring or paying in instalments, and the right one should be requested: mixing them up delays the decision.
Renouncing also has a tax calendar
Renouncing an inheritance is not something to improvise on the last day. If the renunciation is pure, simple and free of charge, and is made before the tax becomes time-barred, the person renouncing pays no tax: those who benefit from the renunciation are assessed as if they had inherited directly, applying the kinship coefficient that corresponds to them in relation to the deceased. But if the renunciation is made in favour of a specific person, or after the inheritance has been accepted expressly or tacitly, there are two taxable events: first an inheritance, then a gift.
The difference is enormous, and it depends on acts that are sometimes done without thinking: drawing on an account, collecting a rent, paying a bill on the property. Any of them can be read as tacit acceptance. When renunciation is being considered, the first step is not to touch anything, and the second is to put the renunciation in a public deed before a notary within the deadline. And renouncing does not excuse you from filing: the situation has to be reported to the competent administration within the six-month period.
Timeline of an inheritance without shocks
| When | What is done |
|---|---|
| Weeks 1 to 3 | Death certificate, register of wills, insurance; copy of the will |
| Month 2 | Declaration of heirs if there is no will; request for bank certificates as at the date of death |
| Month 3 | Inventory and valuation: reference value of the properties, balances, debts and deductible expenses |
| Month 4 | Draft assessment and decision on how the estate is divided; review of the reductions and reliefs that apply |
| Month 5 | If anything is going to be tight, the extension is requested now |
| Month 6 | Deed of acceptance and allocation of the estate, filing and payment |
| Afterwards | Changes of ownership, plusvalía municipal, Land Registry and banks |
If you are in the fourth month and do not have half the papers, write to us through the inheritance and gift form. The first thing we look at is whether the extension has to be requested this week: it is the cheapest decision in the whole file and the only one that expires on its own. How each asset is valued is in how what you receive is valued, and the region in charge in the jurisdiction table.