ENRWA’s good features
A closer look at the role of the European Network of Registers of Wills Association (ENRWA), an association set up in 2005 by the Belgian, French and Slovenian notariats.
In compliance with the Basle Convention of 16 May 1972 on the Establishment of a Scheme of Registration of Wills, States which have a register of last wills and which are members of ENRWA may interconnect these registers. Interconnection makes it possible to find a will registered in an interconnected register other than that of the country of the authority competent to settle the succession.
Since 2015, the ENRWA has also enabled authorities issuing ECS (European Certificate of Succession) to search for the issue of an ECS in another Member State bound by the Regulation.
As for wills, the registration of ECS is carried out within national registers. ENRWA thus interconnects the national registers of wills and ECS to enable searches for those issued in another State, in compliance with the conditions imposed by that State. This search facilitates the processing of cross-border inheritance files.
A complete overhaul in 2023
« “This platform for interconnecting registers of wills is the only operational tool used by European notariats," stresses Pierre-Luc Vogel, notary in Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine), former chairman of the CNUE and treasurer of the ENRWA. As such, it is of twofold asset. Firstly, it is of political interest, as it demonstrates to the European authorities our ability to put in place a tool that can be used by European citizens beyond their borders. And, of course, in terms of legal certainty. What's more, the platform is extremely easy to use, with a maximum response time of twenty-four hours. We know that we have a major challenge ahead of us: convincing countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal to interconnect their register to the ENRW , and thus to further develop interconnection at European level, especially as the few technical difficulties we have experienced are now behind us”.[1], et ainsi, de développer encore l’interconnexion au niveau européen/ D’autant plus que les quelques difficultés techniques que nous avons pu connaitre sont désormais derrière nous. »
“Last year, we upgraded the technical platform between the registers of wills and ECS registers, making them much more interconnected," explains François-Xavier Bary, Director of ENRWA. We also took the opportunity to modernise the ways in which European registers can be queried using a citizen's national identity number, which is authorised in many countries. This has enabled us to improve the relevance of the searches that are carried out and, therefore, to find even more provisions at European level". E.Dubois-Valmier.
In figures
In 2023, 5225 searches of the ENRW (European Network of Registers of Wills) revealed 696 wills. In most cases, they confirmed that there had been no last will and testament, thereby securing the settlement of the estate.
[1] There are now thirteen interconnected registers out of the twenty-two European notariats.
