Is Your UAE Will Useless Abroad? Expert Explains

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
Here's a question on the Morning Drive. Who gets the wealth? As you and your families build wealth across multiple countries, passing it on is becoming more complicated. From international properties to global investments, inheritance planning goes far beyond just a simple will. So what we want to do this morning is look at how families are protecting wealth across borders, how they're preparing for the next generation for a smooth transfer of assets. Pooja Bhatia is co-founder and director, Legal at Ma'an Legacy and Legal Consultancy. She joins me in the studio. Nice to see you.

**Pooja Bhatia** (0:39)
Nice to see you, Tim. Thank you for having me.

**Tim Elliott** (0:41)
You're very welcome. It's good to have you here.
We see so many, and this has been in the news for the last year or two, and it's increasing, seems to be daily, so many ultra high net worth families moving to the UAE right now. But how many of them, Pooja, actually realize that their global assets are exposed as soon as you cross borders? I'm guessing you're busier than you were a year ago.

**Pooja Bhatia** (1:10)
True. That's true.
UAE families today are more global than ever. They buy properties in London, they invest in the US, they have businesses in Asia, their children study in Europe, and each of these countries have their own tax rules, which was not the case earlier. The families were restricted to one country, but now since they're moving global, the impact of tax rules is important, and that's why global taxation comes into play.

**Tim Elliott** (1:39)
I mean, it's so much more complicated, isn't it? It seems like the, maybe it's just me, the older I get, the more complicated life seems to become. I thought it would all unfold and be easier as I learned. It's not the case, but I wanted to ask you, can we kind of dismantle a common misconception? Because lots of expats, lots of local investors assume that as long as they're, they have a registered DIFC or ADGM will, for example, their global estate is completely secure. But I know that I'm guessing that you actually, I'm hoping that you, you would advocate that inheritance planning needs to go a lot deeper in this modern age of these globalized portfolios.

**Pooja Bhatia** (2:23)
That's true, because earlier on, people thought that as long as I have a will, I'm covered.
But that's not the case anymore, because with assets located in different parts of the world, cross-border tax optimization is becoming important. Cross-border tax optimization essentially is making sure that global wealth is structured in such a way that it's passed on to the next generation in the most tax-efficient manner, without losing money to unnecessary taxes in different countries.

**Tim Elliott** (2:54)
I mean, cross-border tax optimization is a pretty hot topic, isn't it, among wealthy families. So, if you are a wealthy family and you've got property in Singapore, in London, in Mumbai, in New York, wherever it is, you are effectively multi-jurisdictional, which has its own set of issues, I suppose. So then you're looking potentially at foreign probate courts, interacting with the UAE-registered world. It's a very involved situation.

**Pooja Bhatia** (3:24)
That's true. Yes, that's true.
It's not, people think it is to be complex, but if you break it down, it's not complex. It's actually giving you clarity. Clarity in terms of where your assets are, which jurisdictions they fall in, what are the tax rules, where your beneficiaries are, where they plan to move next. So once we have all these actually laid down on paper, it clarifies a situation. So it's not as complex as it sounds. It's about breaking it down and actually analyzing it.

**Tim Elliott** (3:56)
And actually doing it, because I guess the problem with all of this is life gets in the way in your living and you haven't maybe made the arrangements and life tends to strike when you least expect it, I suppose. So it is a case of sitting down with that blank piece of paper and looking and thinking, right, what do we need to think about first? And then it moves from there, I guess.

**Pooja Bhatia** (4:16)
Yes, that's true.
And in fact, today, it's not just about the matriarch or the patriarch who is taking this initiative. It's also the next generation who's getting involved because the younger generation is more globally aware about finances, about jurisdictions. They've studied abroad. So they are the ones who are actually taking the initiative of wanting to sit down with their parents and wanting to know and make sure that the assets pass down smoothly to them.

**Tim Elliott** (4:45)