Estate Planning in Mauritius: What You Can Actually Control

Estate planning in Mauritius begins with a constraint that common-law wills often miss: descendants are protected heirs, and a will ordinarily controls only the disposable portion after the reserved share is respected. The plan must also account for the owner’s matrimonial regime, lifetime gifts, the form of each asset and any foreign law connected to the person or property.

Map the estate before choosing documents

Prepare an inventory showing each asset, legal owner, acquisition date, approximate value, debt and evidence of title. Include Mauritian land, bank and investment accounts, company shares, vehicles, valuable movables, insurance policies and foreign assets. Record whether an account or policy has a nomination, but do not assume the label alone proves it falls outside the estate.

Liabilities and missing papers are as important as headline values. Locate title deeds, loan statements, company constitutions, share registers, prior donations, marriage documents and earlier wills. A succession file cannot safely treat a jointly used family asset as jointly owned without examining the deed or account terms.

Reserved heirs and the disposable portion

Articles 913 and 915 of the Code Civil Mauricien limit gifts and testamentary dispositions where protected descendants or, in some circumstances, ascendants survive. With one child, the disposable portion is one half of the estate used for the calculation; with two children it is one third; with three or more it is one quarter. The remainder is reserved.

Those fractions do not mean that a will is pointless. A will can identify who receives the disposable portion, select particular assets subject to valuation and reduction rules, and deal with administration. It cannot simply declare that a protected child receives nothing and thereby remove the reserve. The overview of Mauritian inheritance law explains the succession framework in more detail.

Wills and formal validity

A useful will identifies the testator and beneficiaries unambiguously, deals with the assets it is intended to cover and follows an accepted legal form. Informal digital notes, unsigned drafts and conflicting copies create proof problems. Review the original document’s custody and ensure the people expected to act after death know how it can be located without giving them freedom to alter it.

A foreign will should be reviewed alongside any Mauritian will so that one does not accidentally revoke the other. Separate wills for separate countries may be sensible in some estates, but only after advisers compare revocation clauses, executors and asset descriptions. Cross-border form, capacity and conflict-of-laws questions cannot be solved by inserting “worldwide assets” into a template.

Lifetime gifts are part of the calculation

Transferring property before death does not necessarily defeat reserved heirs. Lifetime donations may have to be brought into the succession calculation, and dispositions exceeding the available portion may be reduced. Keep the donation deed, valuation, date, recipient and any retained usufruct. A family memory that land was “given years ago” is not a reliable substitute for the registered instrument.

Suppose a widowed parent has two children and wishes to leave a substantial investment portfolio to a nephew. The starting disposable fraction is one third, not the whole estate. Earlier gifts to either child and asset values relevant to the legal calculation may change what the nephew can retain, so the will should be tested numerically before signature.

The surviving spouse and the matrimonial regime

Before calculating the deceased’s estate, determine which assets already belong to the surviving spouse under the matrimonial regime. Division or liquidation of matrimonial property is conceptually prior to distributing the deceased’s share. A title in one name does not always answer the matrimonial-property question, and marriage contracts or later changes of regime need to be found.

The surviving spouse is not described by article 769 as a reserved heir, but that does not mean the spouse has no protection. Article 768 provides, where its conditions are met, a usufruct in the matrimonial home and furniture when the deceased leaves descendants or ascendants, subject to the article’s valuation and option rules. Advice should therefore separate ownership, usufruct and reserved shares rather than use the vague phrase “the spouse gets the house”.

Planning for incapacity and business continuity

A will operates at death; it does not authorise someone to manage an incapacitated person’s bank account while that person is alive. Review current authority arrangements, access to essential records and who can keep a business functioning if a director or signatory cannot act. Any mandate must be designed under the applicable Mauritian law and institution requirements, not copied from a foreign power-of-attorney form.

Business owners should align the will with the company constitution, shareholder agreements, financing covenants and signing mandates. A bequest of shares cannot promise that a beneficiary will become director or that another shareholder must buy them at an invented price. The guide to shareholder disputes identifies why agreed transfer and valuation provisions can matter.

Insurance, tax and foreign assets

For every insurance policy, obtain the current policy schedule and nomination record from the insurer. Whether proceeds form part of the succession and how a nomination operates require the actual policy and governing law. Similar caution applies to pensions, joint accounts, trusts and company-owned policies: “outside probate” is a conclusion to verify, not a planning instruction.

The Mauritius Revenue Authority states that a succession itself is not liable to tax, while a beneficiary is taxable on the share of income derived from the succession. That is narrower than saying death has no fiscal consequences. Income, property transfers, foreign taxes and reporting may still require advice, particularly for a person connected to more than one jurisdiction. Non-citizen ownership also needs the separate analysis described in the property-restriction guide.

Review the plan after material changes

Revisit the plan after marriage, divorce, a birth or death, a substantial gift, acquisition or sale of land, business restructuring or a move between countries. Check the asset inventory and beneficiary names against the documents rather than simply reprinting the old will with a new date. A change in family circumstances can affect both the reserved share and which instrument now controls an asset.

Store a dated inventory and adviser contact sheet with the original documents, but keep passwords and security credentials appropriately protected. The practical goal is that the family can locate the will, civil-status records, deeds and account details without treating an old spreadsheet as proof of ownership. For procedural context after death, see the Mauritian succession process.

This article is general legal information for Mauritius, not legal advice. For advice on your situation, consult a barrister.