How Often Should You Update Your Estate Strategy?
WEALTH STRATEGY INSIGHTS · ESTATE PLANNING
How Often Should You Update Your Estate Strategy?
More often than you think — and here's why it matters more in the UAE than anywhere else
Adrian Rowles · Financial Advisor · Dubai, UAE
I had a senior executive client, mid-50s, had been living in Dubai for eleven years. Smart man. Ran a tight ship at work, genuinely sophisticated about his finances. His estate plan? He'd had a will drawn up when he first arrived, filed it somewhere, and hadn't looked at it since. In those eleven years, he'd had another child, sold a business, bought property in two new countries, and his marriage had - well, let's say it had changed significantly. His will still named his ex-wife as sole beneficiary and executor.
He's not unusual. He's the rule, not the exception.
Most people treat an estate plan the way they treat a smoke alarm battery. You deal with it once, put it away, and assume it's still working years later. It usually isn't. And in the UAE specifically, the cost of getting this wrong isn't just inconvenient, it can be catastrophic for the people you leave behind.
So let's talk about it properly.
Why the UAE makes this harder than anywhere else
I've worked with clients across multiple jurisdictions over more than a decade. The UAE is genuinely one of the most complex environments on earth for estate planning — and the vast majority of residents don't realise this until something has already gone wrong.
Here's what I mean by complex.
If you die in the UAE without a valid registered will, your estate doesn't just sit in a holding pattern while things get sorted. Bank accounts are typically frozen immediately. Your family could find themselves without access to funds — sometimes for months. I've watched this happen. It's not a theoretical risk buried in a legal textbook. Businesses have come to a halt. Mortgages have been missed. Children's school fees have gone unpaid. All because the right document wasn't in the right place.
And that's before we even get into the question of how your assets actually get distributed.
For non-Muslim expatriates, the default framework in the UAE has historically applied Shariah inheritance principles if no valid will exists explicitly directing otherwise. That means fixed shares to prescribed heirs, very limited scope for your own wishes to shape the outcome. A significant number of people are completely unaware of this until they're sitting across from me — and at that point, sometimes the conversation is already about someone else's estate rather than their own.
The DIFC Wills Service Centre changed the picture considerably for non-Muslims in Dubai. Abu Dhabi has the ADJD equivalent. Registering a will through these services gives you a legally enforceable document that overrides the default — your assets go where you say they go. It is, without question, one of the most important steps any expat can take. And still, a surprisingly large proportion haven't done it.
Then there's the multi-jurisdictional reality of most people's lives here. The majority of my clients don't just hold UAE assets. They have property in their home country, investments in a third jurisdiction, a pension in the UK operating under its own framework, business interests across free zones and onshore entities. Each of those assets sits in its own legal world with its own succession rules and its own administrative process. An estate plan that handles Dubai perfectly can still leave your UK property in a mess — or your investment account in limbo — if the cross-border coordination hasn't been thought through carefully.
WORTH KNOWING
The UAE currently levies no inheritance tax, no capital gains tax, and no personal income tax. That's a meaningful advantage. But the absence of inheritance tax doesn't eliminate complexity — it shifts the risk elsewhere. Asset freezing, probate delays, business disruption, and family disputes are the real threats here, not a tax bill. I've seen asset-rich estates become deeply problematic despite being tax-efficient, simply because the legal structure wasn't in order.
So when do you actually need to update it?
This is the question I get asked most consistently — and my answer is always the same: more often than feels necessary, but less often than you fear.
A well-constructed estate strategy doesn't need to be rebuilt from scratch every year. But it does need a genuine review every two to three years as a baseline. And there are specific life events that should trigger an immediate look, regardless of when you last sat down with your plan.
The ones people know about — but still miss
Marriage or divorce. I'd particularly emphasise divorce. I cannot count the number of times I've had to explain to someone that the ex-spouse they separated from two or three years ago is still listed as primary beneficiary across multiple accounts and insurance policies. It's one of those things that feels completely obvious in retrospect. It gets missed constantly in practice.
The birth of a child — or a grandchild, or an adoption. If you have minor children and no registered guardianship designation, you're leaving that decision to a court process. That process may or may not land on the person you'd have chosen.
The death of a beneficiary or executor. If someone named in your will or as a trustee has passed away, those designations need to be replaced. A will that references someone who is no longer living creates real problems at the worst possible moment.
Relocation. This one is particularly sharp for UAE residents. If you're arriving here from elsewhere, or leaving the UAE, your residency status, your domicile, and the jurisdiction governing your assets all shift at once. What worked in London does not automatically work in Dubai. What you structured in Dubai may not function as intended once you're based in Singapore. I've seen people move and simply assume continuity. It doesn't work that way.
The ones that tend to slip through
Selling a business. This is a big one that often gets overlooked in the energy of a transaction. You've just converted an illiquid asset — one that may have been driving your entire financial picture — into cash or new investment holdings. The structure of your estate changes significantly in that moment. Where that liquidity sits, how it's held, and how it will eventually be distributed needs to be revisited before the dust settles, not months later when you get around to it.
A health change. Nobody enjoys this conversation, but a diagnosis that affects your long-term capacity is precisely the moment when having a properly registered Power of Attorney becomes non-negotiable. And my strong advice is not to wait for a health event to think about this. The time to sort out a POA is when you don't need it yet.
Changes in law. UAE succession law has evolved considerably in recent years. There have been updates to how non-Muslim wills are registered, recognised, and enforced. Tax law in your home country may also have changed since you left — this is particularly relevant for UK, US, and Australian residents, all of whom carry long-reach tax obligations that don't simply disappear because they're now living in Dubai.
A change in a beneficiary's circumstances. If someone you've named as a beneficiary has gone through their own divorce, developed financial difficulties, or experienced some other significant life change, it's worth thinking about whether the original designation still serves the intention behind it. Inheritance can be a gift or it can create complications, depending entirely on timing and structure.
The gap between knowing something matters and actually doing something about it: that's where most people spend most of their lives. The UAE expat community is no different.
The numbers, because they're worth saying out loud
I came across some research recently — US-centric data, but the pattern is entirely consistent with what I observe working with clients here in Dubai every week.
Eighty-three percent of people acknowledge the importance of having an estate plan. Thirty-one percent have a will. That gap — between knowing and doing — is where most people live. And the complexity of the UAE environment tends to widen that gap rather than narrow it, because the task feels more daunting and the available guidance is thinner than in home-country markets.
Nearly half of those surveyed said they are more financially anxious today than they were a year ago. Almost eighty percent said inflation has made it harder to pursue long-term goals.
I raise these not to pile on. I raise them because financial anxiety has a specific and somewhat ironic effect on planning behaviour: it makes people procrastinate on exactly the things that would most relieve it. Knowing your affairs are in order is one of the most effective ways to reduce financial stress — not because it solves your returns problem, but because it removes an entire category of uncertainty from your family's future. There is genuine peace of mind in having this done properly.
What good actually looks like in practice
I want to be practical here rather than just paint a picture of what could go wrong.
For most of my UAE-based clients, a solid estate strategy involves several distinct layers — and very rarely does a single document or product cover all of them.
A registered DIFC or ADJD will covering UAE-based assets. A separate will — or wills — covering assets in other jurisdictions, because a single document frequently cannot legally address everything across borders, regardless of what some advisors will tell you. A properly registered Power of Attorney naming someone who can act on your behalf across the relevant jurisdictions, with the right legal recognition in each. Life insurance or structured wrappers designed specifically to provide liquidity from day one — so your family has access to funds immediately, not only after the estate is administered. And for business owners, a succession plan embedded into the actual legal structure of the business itself, not just referenced in a will that nobody can act on quickly enough when it matters.
For clients with more layered situations — significant cross-border holdings, family office structures, multigenerational wealth considerations — we layer in trust or foundation structures that provide asset protection, controlled succession, and jurisdictional efficiency across borders. These aren't exclusively for the very wealthy. They're increasingly practical for anyone with meaningful assets in more than one country and a genuine desire to control how those assets pass.
THE POINT
Not everyone needs every mechanism. But everyone needs the conversationwith someone who understands both
the UAE legal environment and the broader international picture that most UAE residents are actually living inside
Where to go from here
If you've read this far, I suspect you already know there's something that needs attention. That's okay. Most people reading this are in exactly that position, and the fact that you're thinking about it puts you ahead of most.
The move is a straightforward one: sit down, look at what you have, work out where the gaps are, and deal with them methodically. You don't need to solve everything at once. You do need to start.
A few honest questions worth asking yourself:
- When did you last look at your will — and does it still map to your actual life as it stands today?
- Are your beneficiary designations across every account, policy, and investment structure current and correct?
- If you became incapacitated tomorrow, does someone have the legal authority to act on your behalf — and is that authority registered in the right jurisdictions?
- If you died this week, would your family be protected and have access to funds immediately — or would they be navigating a frozen-account process with no liquidity while everything gets sorted?
- Does your estate plan account for every country in which you hold meaningful assets?
If any of those answers feel uncertain, that's the information you needed.
I work with individuals, business owners, and families across the UAE and beyond to get this structured properly, not in a generic, template-driven way, but in a way that actually reflects your life, your assets, and your goals.
If that's a conversation worth having, I'd welcome it.
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DISCLAIMER
This article is written for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice specific to your individual situation. Laws and regulations governing estate planning in the UAE and other jurisdictions are subject to change. You should always consult qualified legal and financial professionals before taking action. Adrian Rowles and associated entities accept no liability for decisions made based on the content of this publication.