General information

• Part of the application is a declaration in lieu of an oath which has to be notarised by a court or notary (‘Notar’) in Germany.
• Abroad, the declaration in lieu of an oath can be notarised by an authorised consular officer at a German mission.

Required documents

• Please contact the Embassy for a questionnaire for inheritance matters which is the basis for the preparation of your application for a certificate of inheritance. Please complete the questionnaire as thoroughly as possible and send it back to the Embassy.
• In addition to the questionnaire you should also submit copies of available certificates relating to the line of succession
  • including birth,
  • death
  • and marriage certificates,
  • last wills,
  • grant of probate etc.
• If the decedent left a will, the Embassy requires information on whether the will has been probated or not. Please be prepared to submit the original will to the German probate court.

What happens after?

• Based on your questionnaire the Embassy will draft an application for a certificate of inheritance and will then contact you in order to agree on an appointment for the notarisation. A fee is charged for the notarisation, please ask for the amount when making your appointment. The fee is based on the value of the estate. The fee can be paid cash only.
• As German is the official court language in Germany, the text of the application will be put forward in German only. If the applicant is not in sufficient command of German, the consular officer will verbally translate the full contents of the application to English. If you would like to obtain a full written translation of the application, you will be responsible for all costs incurred by a translation.
• Due to the large number of applications received, it may take 2-3 months until the draft of the application is ready for notarisation. Applications are being processed in chronological order. The German Foreign Missions regret any inconvenience that this might cause. The Embassy will contact you as soon as possible to arrange an appointment for notarisation. In the meantime we kindly ask you to refrain from individual enquiries regarding the application status.

After the notarisation...

After notarisation, you will need to send the application to the competent German probate court together with certified true copies of the required personal documents. Please keep in mind that the German court may request translations of any foreign document even though translations of English documents are not required for notarisation at the Embassy. A court fee will be charged for the issuance of the certificate of inheritance/executorship.

In case of any further questions please do not hesitate to contact the Embassy.