How to approach a will and estate plan covering assets in the CIS

A family with assets spread across Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Georgia or another CIS state (member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the successor body to the Soviet Union comprising twelve post-Soviet republics) faces a succession problem that no single adviser in a single jurisdiction can resolve alone. The will that works in Moscow may do nothing for the BVI holding entity. The trust settled in Hong Kong may be disregarded entirely by a Kazakh notary. And the forced-heirship rules that operate quietly in the background of CIS civil-law systems will surface at precisely the wrong moment – when the principal is no longer present to correct the structure.

Approaching a will and estate plan covering assets in the CIS requires mapping each asset and jurisdiction first, then choosing the governing law for each layer, then sequencing the documents so that they do not contradict one another – with Hong Kong's common-law trust and private-wealth regime acting as the offshore anchor where it adds structural value. The Trustee Ordinance (Cap. 29) provides the statutory foundation for Hong Kong-law trusts, which carry no forced-heirship exposure and, since the 2013 reform effective 1 December 2013, no rule against perpetuities.

This guide sets out the steps in order. Each step carries the gate that must be cleared before the next begins.

Step 1: Map the asset landscape before touching any document

The single most consequential act in any CIS-linked estate plan is completing a full asset map before drafting begins. Every subsequent decision depends on it.

CIS family wealth typically spans at least three categories. First, onshore operating assets: real property, bank accounts and business interests held directly in the CIS state of residence or origin. Second, intermediate holding layers: BVI or Cayman companies sitting above the opco, or a Cyprus intermediate that was restructured during the 2010s. Third, offshore or third-country layers: Hong Kong holding entities, Singapore accounts, UAE real estate, UK property, and sometimes a trust or foundation already in place but undocumented.

Each category attracts a different succession regime. The CIS onshore assets will almost certainly follow the lex situs (the law of the place where the asset is situated), regardless of what any will says. The intermediate holding shares may follow BVI or Cayman law, where testamentary freedom is broad. The Hong Kong trust layer follows the Trustee Ordinance. These regimes do not speak to one another automatically. A plan that assumes they do will fail at the point of administration.

The gate at Step 1: a complete, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction asset schedule, with the legal form of each holding and the name of the jurisdiction whose law governs it. No document should be drafted until this schedule is finished and agreed.

Step 2: Identify the forced-heirship exposure across the family's map

Forced-heirship rules are the structural risk that CIS families most consistently underestimate. Most CIS states operate civil-law systems derived from the Soviet-era civil code tradition, and every one of them reserves a statutory share for certain close relatives – typically a spouse, minor children and sometimes dependent parents – regardless of what the will directs.

How large is that statutory share? In most CIS civil-law systems, the obligatory share (often called the objazatel'naya dolya in Russian-language jurisdictions) amounts to at least half of what the heir would have received on intestacy. For a family with significant onshore assets, that fraction can be material. Where the deceased had minor children from a prior relationship and a second spouse, the calculation compounds quickly.

The interaction with the offshore structure is where foreign counsel consistently misstep. A BVI will or a Hong Kong trust does not override a CIS forced-heirship claim against CIS-sited assets. What it can do – if the structure is correctly drawn – is ring-fence the offshore layer so that the claim is confined to the onshore assets and does not travel upward into the holding chain.

Hong Kong's position is notable here. The Trustee Ordinance, as reformed, expressly strengthens the protection of Hong Kong-law trusts against forced-heirship claims arising under foreign law. That protection is not absolute – it requires that the trust be validly constituted under Hong Kong law and that the relevant assets have been genuinely transferred to the trustee. But it gives a properly structured Hong Kong trust a degree of resistance that many offshore alternatives cannot match on the same statutory footing.

The gate at Step 2: a forced-heirship exposure analysis for each jurisdiction where the family holds assets. The analysis must identify who the forced heirs are, what share they command, and which assets are exposed. Only then can the structure be designed to contain the exposure to the onshore layer.

In our cross-border private wealth practice, we see this step skipped more often than any other. The consequences emerge years later, during administration, when they are expensive and sometimes irreversible.

Step 3: Choose the governing law for each layer of the structure

Once the asset map and the forced-heirship analysis are complete, the next gate is selecting the governing law for each instrument. This is a decision, not a default. The governing law of a will, a trust deed, or a holding company's constitutional documents is chosen – or it is imposed by operation of law when no choice is made.

For the onshore CIS layer, the governing law of succession to immovable property is generally fixed by the lex situs and cannot be contracted around. For movable property, most CIS states follow the law of the deceased's last domicile – which may or may not be the CIS state itself, depending on the family's residence history.

For the offshore holding layer, the governing law of the shares and the corporate documents follows the law of incorporation. A BVI company's shares pass under BVI succession rules unless there is a specific mechanism – a share transfer agreement, a will governed by BVI law, or a trust – that directs them otherwise. This is a planning opportunity, not a given.

For the trust layer, Hong Kong law is a considered choice where the family has a Hong Kong connection – a holding entity, a family office, or a principal who spends time in the city. A Hong Kong-law trust, settled by a settlor who reserves appropriate powers (a position expressly protected by the Trustee Ordinance since the 2013 reform), can hold BVI and Cayman shares, hold Hong Kong real property, and act as the receiving vehicle for distributions from operating entities across the CIS region.

What should the will cover? For most CIS-linked families, the answer is: everything not already dealt with by the trust, the corporate structure, or a nominee arrangement. The will should be jurisdiction-specific where the asset is fixed (an immovable), and it should cross-refer, not conflict, with the trust deed for movable and offshore assets. Two wills in two jurisdictions that each claim to govern everything is a common and costly drafting error.

The gate at Step 3: a governing-law decision matrix, setting out for each asset category which law governs succession, which instrument covers it, and whether there is any conflict that must be resolved before execution.

How do Hong Kong and CIS succession rules interact in practice?

Hong Kong operates as a common-law jurisdiction with no forced-heirship regime and no capital gains or inheritance tax. That combination makes it structurally attractive as the apex of a holding structure for CIS-origin families. But the interaction with CIS succession law requires careful management at two specific points.

The first point is asset transfer into trust. For a Hong Kong trust to hold CIS-connected assets, those assets must be validly transferred to the trustee. Where the assets are shares in a BVI or Cayman holding company, the transfer follows the law of that company's jurisdiction – generally straightforward. Where the assets are held onshore in a CIS state, the transfer is more complex and may trigger local tax, regulatory or exchange-control consequences. In our cross-border practice, we regularly advise on the sequencing of this transfer to avoid creating an unintended tax event in the CIS state before the offshore structure is in place.

The second point is recognition. A Hong Kong trust will not be automatically recognised by a CIS-state court during administration. Civil-law systems in the CIS have no direct equivalent to the common-law trust. The practical answer is structural separation: the Hong Kong trust holds the offshore layer, and the CIS estate is administered by local wills and notarial instruments, without any document that requires the CIS court to engage with the concept of a trust.

Consider a representative scenario. A principal from a Central Asian CIS state had operating businesses held through a Kazakhstan tovarishchestvo s ogranichennoy otvetstvennostyu (a Kazakh limited liability company, analogous to an LLC), with a BVI intermediate and a Hong Kong holding entity at the top of the chain. The family had no existing will. On engagement in early 2026, the first task was confirming that the Hong Kong entity's shares could be settled into a Hong Kong-law trust without triggering a Kazakh tax charge on the transfer. The structure was sequenced accordingly, and the CIS will was drafted separately to deal with the Kazakh LLC interests, explicitly excluding any reference to the offshore layer. The two instruments do not overlap.

The gate at Step 4: confirm that the trust transfer and the CIS-side instruments have been reviewed by locally licensed counsel in each relevant jurisdiction, and that no document creates an unintended conflict across the two layers.

Step 5: Execute in the right order and the right form

Execution sequence matters as much as substance. A will signed before the trust deed is settled may inadvertently cover assets that have already left the estate. A trust deed executed after a CIS tax event may arrive too late to achieve its purpose.

The correct sequence, in almost all CIS-linked estate plans, is:

• Complete the asset map and forced-heirship analysis (Steps 1 and 2).
• Agree the governing-law matrix (Step 3).
• Execute the trust deed (where a trust is part of the structure), with the settlor's reserved powers clearly documented.
• Transfer the relevant assets to the trustee, with local CIS tax and regulatory clearance obtained first.
• Execute the wills, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, drafted so that each is confined to the assets in its jurisdiction and does not conflict with the trust.
• Deposit or register each will in accordance with the local requirements of the relevant jurisdiction (notarisation requirements vary across CIS states).

Notarisation deserves a specific note. Most CIS states require wills to be notarised to be valid. The notarisation requirements differ: some require the will to be drafted entirely by the notary; others accept a document prepared by the testator's adviser and then certified. For a will covering assets in Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia or another CIS state, confirmation of the local notarisation requirement is not optional – it is the gate at this step.

The sequence above describes the standard position. Your matter turns on the documents, the jurisdictions actually engaged, and the order of steps – which is where the route is won or lost. For a structured assessment of your CIS-linked estate plan across the relevant jurisdictions, write to us at info@lockhartyip.com.

What are the most common mistakes in CIS-linked estate planning, and how does a structured approach avoid them?

Four mistakes appear with consistent frequency in the CIS-linked estate files we encounter.

The first is treating the CIS as a single legal system. It is not. Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan each have distinct succession codes, distinct forced-heirship rules, distinct notarisation requirements, and distinct tax consequences for cross-border transfers. A plan that treats "CIS law" as a category fails at the first onshore step.

The second mistake is leaving the offshore and onshore layers undocumented against each other. A BVI holding company whose shares are held by a Hong Kong trust, but whose operating subsidiary sits in a CIS state with no local will or succession document covering the subsidiary, creates a gap. The trust holds the shares; the shares are enforceable in the BVI. But the CIS subsidiary's internal governance – its management, its bank signatories, its day-to-day operations – may be frozen while the CIS state tries to determine who the successor is under local law.

The third mistake is executing all wills in a single jurisdiction on the theory that "international" scope is sufficient. For immovable property in a CIS state, this does not work. The lex situs will apply, and a will executed abroad, without local notarisation, may not be admitted to probate.

The fourth mistake – the one that generates the most litigation – is failing to update the plan after a major life event. A marriage, a divorce, the birth of a child, or a change of residence can alter the forced-heirship position in a CIS state, the domicile analysis for the governing-law choice, and the trust's compliance with the Trustee Ordinance's reserved-powers provisions. A plan that was well-constructed in 2022 may be structurally inadequate by 2027 if none of those events triggered a review.

If an earlier filing, structure or enforcement attempt produced an adverse or stalled result, a second read can identify the strategic error and the routes still open. Write to info@lockhartyip.com with the outline of the position.

Decision checklist: is your CIS estate plan structurally sound?

Before treating any CIS-linked estate plan as complete, the following questions should each carry a confirmed answer.

• Is there a complete, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction asset schedule, with the legal form and governing law of each holding confirmed?
• Has a forced-heirship analysis been completed for each CIS state where immovable or onshore movable assets are held?
• Has the governing law been chosen deliberately for each instrument, and is there a governing-law matrix showing no conflicts?
• If a Hong Kong trust is part of the structure, have the assets been validly transferred to the trustee, with local CIS tax and regulatory clearance obtained?
• Has each CIS-side will been reviewed by locally licensed counsel in the relevant jurisdiction, and does each will comply with local notarisation requirements?
• Do the wills and the trust deed cross-refer without conflicting? Is each instrument confined to the layer it governs?
• Is there a governance continuity plan for each CIS operating entity, covering management and bank signatories during the administration period?
• Has the plan been reviewed against the current residence and domicile position of the principal and each beneficiary?
• Is there a trigger for review on each major life event (marriage, divorce, birth, change of residence, change of asset mix)?

A "no" or "not confirmed" against any of these items is a structural gap. The gap may be benign during the principal's lifetime. It will not remain benign during administration.

For a comprehensive review of your private wealth and succession position across the CIS and the relevant offshore centres, our desk is available at info@lockhartyip.com. You may also find it useful to read our guidance on source of wealth and source of funds files for family offices and on structuring a single family office through Hong Kong.

Related practices

• Private Wealth – succession, trusts, family office structuring and cross-border asset protection
• Holding Structures – BVI, Cayman and Hong Kong holding entity design and governance
• Tax Positions – FSIE regime, profits tax and cross-border treaty analysis for private clients

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• Private Wealth
• Source Wealth Source Funds Files Family Office Briefing
• Single Family Office Structured Through Hong Kong Guide

This publication is general information and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on your situation, contact info@lockhartyip.com.