Blog · Estate Planning · Cross-Border

Estate Planning When Your Family Spans Two Countries

By Dylan James, Texas attorney · Bar No. 24094748 · August 2026

If your family has property, heirs, or roots in another country, the standard form will you can download online is not built for you. Two legal systems will touch your estate, and they do not automatically cooperate.

A large share of the families I work with across Denton, Grapevine, and the Alliance corridor have one foot in Texas and one somewhere else — usually Mexico, sometimes further. A house that belonged to parents. A parcel of ejido land. Siblings who never came north. Children who are U.S. citizens and a spouse who is not.

None of that is a problem. But it is a set of facts that a generic estate plan silently ignores, and the consequences don't surface until the family is already grieving.

Real property abroad follows that country's law

This is the rule that surprises people most. Real estate is generally governed by the law of the place where it sits. Your Texas will does not, by itself, control a house in Guanajuato.

Many civil law countries — including Mexico — also apply forced heirship or protected-share concepts that limit how freely you can disinherit or reallocate among close relatives. You may not have the freedom you assume to leave that property to whomever you choose.

Practical consequence: families often need coordinated planning in both countries. A Texas will for Texas assets, and a separate instrument prepared under the other country's law for property there — drafted so that neither accidentally revokes the other. That last point matters. A later-executed will containing a broad revocation clause can wipe out the one drafted abroad.

Mixed-status households need deliberate structure

When some family members are citizens, some are permanent residents, and some have no status or a pending case, the plan has to account for it — without ever making status the centerpiece of the family's legal life.

Points that come up repeatedly:

• Guardianship for minor children is the one that keeps parents awake. Naming a guardian in your will is how you tell a court whom you trust to raise your children. Name alternates, and name someone who will realistically be available.
• Who serves as executor. An executor who lives abroad or cannot travel freely creates practical friction in administering a Texas estate. This is worth thinking through rather than defaulting to the eldest child.
• Access to funds during a disruption. If a family's earner is suddenly unavailable, a durable power of attorney determines whether anyone can pay the mortgage next month.
• Marital transfers. Unlimited estate-tax-free transfer between spouses is generally available where the surviving spouse is a U.S. citizen. Where the surviving spouse is not, different rules apply and a qualified domestic trust may be relevant. Most families never approach the exemption thresholds where this matters — but for those who do, it matters a great deal.

Accounts, benefits, and beneficiary forms

Retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable-on-death accounts pass by beneficiary designation regardless of what your will says. Two recurring issues in cross-border families:

• A beneficiary abroad may face documentation hurdles collecting — identification, tax forms, and a U.S. taxpayer identification number the institution requires.
• Designations naming relatives who have since died, or naming no one at all, force the asset into probate.

Reviewing these forms is unglamorous and it is often the highest-value hour of the entire process.

Documents, language, and evidence

Cross-border estates run on paperwork. Foreign birth, marriage, and death certificates typically require certified translation, and often an apostille under the Hague Convention to be recognized here. Gathering that while a family is grieving, across a border, is brutal. Gathering it now is an afternoon.

I also prepare and explain documents in Spanish. A plan the family cannot read is not a plan they will follow — and Texas execution formalities have to be satisfied properly regardless of the language you discuss them in.

Start with an inventory

Before any drafting, the useful first step is a written list: every account and where it's held, every piece of real property in either country and how title is held, every insurance policy and its named beneficiary, and who you would want raising your children. Most of the value of cross-border planning comes from simply seeing the whole picture in one place — often for the first time.

Este artículo también está disponible en español: Planificación patrimonial para familias en dos países.