Foreign Wills in the UAE: From a Will Made Abroad to a Dubai Title Deed

A will made abroad has no effect on UAE assets until a UAE court acts on it. For a non-Muslim who owned property in Dubai, the heirs have two routes: ask the Execution Judge to enforce a foreign court order directly, or open an estate case in Dubai and use the foreign will as evidence. Either way, the Dubai Land Department (DLD) moves the title deed only on a UAE court's official letter. In the files LYLAW handles, the process usually takes 6 to 24 months from first document to new title deed, and where a family lands in that range depends mostly on how quickly the originals can be found abroad, legalised, attested and translated into Arabic.

This article covers wills made outside the UAE, and estates with no will at all where the heirs live abroad. Enforcing an Abu Dhabi will, or a will registered in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), in onshore Dubai is usually simpler: a UAE court has already ruled, so a writ of execution is normally enough. Heirs with UAE assets of their own can spare their families these steps by registering a will in the UAE, which the DIFC, Dubai Courts and the Abu Dhabi courts all offer.

Is a will made abroad recognised in the UAE?

A will made abroad can be recognised in the UAE, but it does not transfer UAE assets on its own; a UAE court must first either enforce a foreign order or issue its own order confirming the heirs. Until then, banks, free zone authorities and the DLD will not act on the foreign document.

Which rules the court applies depends first on the religion of the deceased.

• Non-Muslims. Article 11 of Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status, in force since 1 February 2023, lets a non-Muslim leave a will covering all of their assets in the UAE. With no will, half of the estate goes to the surviving spouse and the other half is divided equally among the children, with no difference between sons and daughters.
• Heirs of a foreign national. Under Article 11(3), the heirs of a non-Muslim foreigner who left no registered will may ask the court to apply the law designated by the UAE Civil Transactions Law (now Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025) instead of the default split. The court may then ask for proof of that foreign law, usually by expert opinion.
• Islamic inheritance rules apply under Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2024 on Personal Status: fixed shares for each heir, and a bequest generally limited to one-third of the estate. The Lawgical episode on the new UAE Personal Status Law explains how these rules apply to Muslim residents.

The religion question is not always settled by a passport. A past marriage to a Muslim spouse, or civil records that disagree between countries, can be enough for the court to ask whether the deceased was Muslim. The answer can change who inherits and how much.

Declaratory and enforceable foreign documents

The type of foreign document decides the court route. Most foreign wills and foreign inheritance decisions are declaratory: they name the heirs but do not order anyone to do anything. A smaller group of documents are enforceable court instruments. A Scottish confirmation is one example: the Sheriff Court issues it to executors, and it authorises them to deal with the estate.

Before anything is filed, check exactly which papers the family holds. A will, a probate grant, an inheritance decision and a court order are four different documents, and families regularly mistake one for another.

Court steps: the writ of execution or a Dubai estate case

Heirs enforcing a foreign will in Dubai use one of two court paths. Path one, a writ of execution, is fast but only works for a foreign court order that contains an enforceable obligation. Path two, an estate case, is slower but works for almost any foreign will and for estates with no will at all, so most families end up on it.

Both paths end with a court order and an official letter from the court to the DLD, after which the DLD registers the property to the heirs.

Path one: a writ of execution from the Execution Judge

A writ of execution lets the Dubai Execution Judge enforce a foreign judgment or order directly, without a new case on the merits. The rules are in Articles 222 to 225 of Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022 on Civil Procedure. The heir files a petition, and Article 222 requires the judge to decide within five days of submission.

Before granting the writ, the judge checks these conditions:

• The UAE courts did not have jurisdiction over the matter, and the foreign court did under its own rules.
• The parties to the foreign proceedings were properly summoned and represented.
• The order is final under the law of the country that issued it.
• The order does not conflict with an existing UAE judgment or with UAE public order.
• Reciprocity: the foreign country would enforce a UAE judgment on similar terms.

Article 225 gives priority to treaties, but Article 222 itself does not require a treaty. On that basis, Dubai courts have enforced a US state court judgment without a treaty.

In the three Dubai files below, the writ turned on whether the foreign document ordered something to happen:

• Granted, Scotland (2021). A Dubai court placed the executory formula on a Scottish confirmation in Order on Petition No. 76/2021, and Execution Case No. 1552/2021 was registered on 19 September 2021, within weeks. At the time, the governing rule was Article 85 of Cabinet Resolution No. 57 of 2018, the predecessor of today's Article 222. The confirmation qualified because it is a court-issued instrument.
• Granted, England (Personal Status Cassation No. 592/2023, 25 January 2024). An English High Court judgment ordered a former husband to transfer two Dubai properties to his former wife. The Dubai Court of Cassation rejected his argument that only Dubai Courts could rule on Dubai real estate and upheld enforcement under Article 222. This was a divorce case, not an inheritance case, but it confirms that a foreign order directing the transfer of Dubai property can be enforced.
• Refused, Czech Republic (30 January 2026). A Czech inheritance decision was rejected in four days "due to the lack of obligations in the judgment". A second application, before a different judge, met a different objection: the absence of a treaty between the UAE and the Czech Republic.

Path two: an estate case at the Dubai Probate Court

For most foreign wills, the working route is an estate case. Dubai Decree No. 25 of 2023 established the Probate Court in Dubai (often called the Estates Court) with exclusive jurisdiction over estate claims, including real property claims. Since July 2023, Dubai Courts has run a dedicated division for non-Muslim inheritance and wills, which also applies Dubai Law No. 15 of 2017 on non-Muslim estates and wills.

In an estate case the foreign will becomes evidence, and the court works through five questions in this order:

1. Is there a will, and is it foreign, UAE-registered, or absent?
2. Was the deceased Muslim or non-Muslim?
3. Which law governs: the will, the Article 11(2) default, or the foreign law the heirs request under Article 11(3)?
4. Who are the heirs? This is proved through an unbroken chain of civil status documents, foreign probate papers and, often, witnesses. In practice, Dubai Courts ordinarily expect two male witnesses with direct knowledge of the family; remote testimony is possible with the court's approval.
5. What are the UAE assets? The filing can ask the authorities to search for assets the family does not know about.

In the Czech file, the Probate Court relied on a package of evidence rather than the will alone:

• the Czech inheritance decision, refused as a writ but accepted as primary evidence of heirship;
• the Czech will, legalised and translated;
• the death certificate, certified through several Czech authorities and attested by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
• the Dubai title deed;
• the passports of every heir named in the will, including the couple's daughter.

Filing in the wrong court costs months. Dubai's Court of Cassation has sent inheritance disputes to the Probate Court even when they were framed as real estate claims (Real Estate Cassation No. 195/2025) or commercial claims over inherited company shares (Commercial Cassation No. 445/2025). Disputes tied to a DIFC-registered will go to the DIFC Courts instead (Cassation No. 62/2024).

If satisfied, the Probate Court issues an order confirming the heirs and the assets, together with letters to the DLD, the banks or other registries. The paths can also combine: in a 2021 Swiss estate, the Dubai court confirmed the heirs first and a writ of execution followed, in about nine months of court work.

Transferring Dubai property to the heirs

The Dubai Land Department transfers an inherited property to the heirs only on an official letter from Dubai Courts, another UAE court or the Awqaf, addressed to the DLD and requesting the transfer. A foreign will or foreign probate grant presented on its own does not meet that requirement.

The DLD's Inheritance Title Transfer service requires:

• the legal notification of inheritance (the inheritance certificate);
• Emirates ID copies for heirs who are UAE citizens or residents;
• valid passport copies for non-resident heirs;
• a no objection letter from the bank if the property is mortgaged, or from the developer if it is still under a preliminary sale agreement;
• the official court letter requesting the transfer.

The application is made at a DLD trustee centre or the DLD main building. The DLD states a service time of 8 working hours once the file is complete.

Fees are as published by the DLD in October 2026 and exclude lawyers' fees, translation and attestation costs.

Before the transfer, confirm with the DLD that the court's letter has reached it; do not assume it arrived. Expect trustee offices to question whether the foreign documents cover the specific Dubai property. In the Czech file mentioned above, the will expressly stated that it did not deal with UAE assets, and the DLD and two trustee offices initially refused to act. What moved the deed was the Probate Court's own order: on 19 May 2026, in Case No. 938/2026 (Estate File No. 1194/2026), the non-Muslim estates circuit approved the request, authorised correspondence with the DLD and confirmed that the heir could deal with the property without further court permission. The court's letter to the DLD and a certificate from its Inheritance Department confirming the deceased's share followed, and the new title deed was issued on 18 June 2026.

Documents, steps and timeline for heirs living abroad

Document preparation is usually the longest stage of a foreign will case. Every foreign document must be legalised in the country that issued it, attested by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and translated into Arabic by a licensed legal translator; an apostille alone is not enough.

Heirs should expect to gather:

• the original foreign will, plus any probate grant or inheritance decision;
• the death certificate;
• birth, marriage and divorce certificates linking every heir to the deceased, including any change of name;
• passports of the deceased and of every heir named in the documents, not only the heir claiming the asset;
• the title deed or bank details for the UAE assets;
• a power of attorney from each heir to their UAE lawyers, notarised.

The process then runs in six steps:

1. Diagnose the file. Identify the document type, the religion question, the heirs under UAE law (not only under the foreign will), the UAE assets, and whether every heir will cooperate.
2. Legalise, attest and translate every foreign document.
3. Clear the non-resident steps. A UAE Unified Identification Number is needed for the heirs and for the deceased. Non-residents cannot easily open a Dubai Courts portal account, so filings usually go through local advocates with court access.
4. File the petition for a writ of execution (path one) or the estate case (path two).
5. Follow the court process. On path two, the court reviews documents, may ask for more, may hear witnesses and may call for proof of foreign law.
6. Execute the order and follow the court letters through to the DLD and the banks.

The Czech file above took 21 months. The delays came from missing originals, a document treated as the will that turned out to be the inheritance decision, a foreign notary who refused to notarise a UAE-style power of attorney, and two failed attempts at path one.

When a foreign will is not enough

A foreign will does not always carry an estate through to the heirs, even with a Dubai court order in view. These situations stall or redirect a case:

• The will excludes UAE assets, or a foreign order does not mention them. The heirs then rely entirely on a Dubai estate case.
• The will points to a foreign trust. UAE courts do not treat a foreign trust as a directly enforceable instrument, so the trust deed cannot transfer Dubai property.
• The foreign order refers back to earlier orders without repeating their terms. Each underlying order may have to be obtained, legalised and translated.
• An heir will not take part. Without a power of attorney from each heir, an estate case cannot move, and assets such as company shares can freeze.
• The deceased may have been Muslim. Islamic inheritance rules then replace the civil rules, and family members of different religions can challenge the distribution. In one Russian estate with no will, the deceased's religion, marital status and dependents were unclear, and the UAE and Russian records did not tell the same story. Estates with no will, heirs abroad and doubt over the deceased's religion are the slowest files to resolve.
• Some heirs are minors. Guardianship and court supervision of the minor's share add a further layer that this article does not cover.

A UAE will avoids most of these problems. In a 2025 estate, a businessman left a DIFC will covering his UAE bank accounts and a Ukrainian will covering everything else, with his widow as sole heir under both. The DIFC Courts issued a Grant for Use and Benefit on 3 November 2025 and sent letters to both banks two days later, so DIFC probate closed that part of the estate with no onshore case. His one-third stake in a Dubai free zone company fell under the Ukrainian will instead: the free zone authority rejected the Ukrainian certificate of inheritance and required a UAE court order, and the widow declined to take part in an estate case. The company's licence has since expired, and the other shareholders, holding 66.6%, cannot reach the 75% needed to liquidate it.

Anyone holding UAE assets should make a UAE will that covers all of them, including company shares. The Lawgical episode on why non-Muslim expats need a UAE will compares the DIFC, Dubai Courts and Abu Dhabi registration options.

Speak to LYLAW about enforcing a foreign will

LYLAW's Dubai wills and inheritance team, led by US-qualified lawyer Ludmila Yamalova, has been licensed in Dubai since 2009 and acts for heirs in the UAE and abroad on writs of execution, Dubai estate cases and the transfer of property, bank balances and company shares. If you have a foreign will, a foreign probate grant or no will at all for assets in the UAE, book a consultation to find out which court path your documents support.

This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice. The law and its application depend on individual circumstances and may change over time. For advice specific to your situation, please contact the LYLAW team.