Family, Estate and Inheritance Law Vietnam for Foreign Nationals | ECOVIS Vietnam Law

Cross-border families in Vietnam sit at the intersection of two legal systems that rarely align by default. A marriage recognized in Frankfurt, an inheritance opened in Zurich, or a villa purchased in Da Nang can each trigger a different set of Vietnamese rules than the ones a foreign national assumes apply. ECOVIS Vietnam Law works through these questions systematically, translating Vietnamese property, marital, and succession law into concrete guidance families and their home-country advisors can act on.

Property ownership rules for foreign residents

The Housing Law 2023 sets the framework foreign individuals must work within when buying residential property in Vietnam, including caps on the proportion of units a foreign owner may hold within a given building or landed-housing project, and limits on the duration and renewal of ownership rights compared with Vietnamese citizens. Families often discover these limits only after falling in love with a specific property, at which point the deal structure — buying in one spouse’s name, through a Vietnamese entity, or via a leasehold arrangement — becomes a scramble rather than a plan. We find it more effective to map ownership eligibility, project-level quota availability, and renewal mechanics before an offer is made, not after a deposit is paid. This matters doubly for mixed-nationality couples, where the Vietnamese spouse’s ownership rights and the foreign spouse’s rights are not automatically interchangeable, and for family offices acquiring several units across a project, where quota limits can bind well before the family’s budget does.

Marriage property regimes for cross-border couples

Vietnamese law distinguishes between separate property and marital community property, and that distinction interacts awkwardly with home-country regimes such as German Zugewinngemeinschaft, Swiss matrimonial property regimes, or common-law equitable distribution when a couple later divorces, relocates, or one spouse dies. A property bought during the marriage with funds traceable to one spouse’s pre-marital savings can be characterized very differently depending on which jurisdiction’s courts or authorities are asked to look at it first. We advise couples to document the source and character of major Vietnam-based assets contemporaneously — at the time of purchase, not years later when a dispute or death forces the question — and to consider a marital property agreement that is drafted with an eye to enforceability under both Vietnamese law and the couple’s home-country law, rather than one that only satisfies one side. This is particularly important where children from a prior relationship, premarital business interests, or family trusts are already in the picture.

Inheritance rights of foreign beneficiaries under Vietnamese succession law

When a foreign national dies owning assets in Vietnam, or when a Vietnamese national’s estate includes foreign heirs, succession typically has to be handled under Vietnamese procedure for any Vietnam-sited assets regardless of what the deceased’s home-country will says about worldwide assets. Foreign beneficiaries frequently assume a will validly executed in their home country will simply be given automatic effect in Vietnam; in practice, the Vietnam-sited assets still need to move through local recognition, documentation, and — for real property in particular — the same foreign-ownership eligibility questions that applied when the asset was first acquired. A foreign heir who does not qualify to hold a given class of Vietnamese real property outright may need to sell, transfer, or restructure the inherited interest rather than hold it indefinitely in their own name. Compulsory-heirship concepts under Vietnamese law can also produce outcomes that differ from a foreign will’s stated wishes, so testators with Vietnam assets should not assume their home-country estate plan travels intact. We routinely map, asset by asset, which parts of an estate a Vietnamese court or notary-equivalent process will actually control.

Estate planning structures for family offices and Vietnam-based assets

For high-net-worth families and family offices, the practical objective is usually to make Vietnam-sited assets — real estate, operating companies, investment portfolios — pass to intended beneficiaries with minimal friction, minimal forced-heirship surprise, and minimal double taxation exposure across jurisdictions. Because foreign trust structures are not treated identically under Vietnamese law, families cannot simply drop a Vietnam property into a home-country trust and expect Vietnamese authorities to give effect to the trust’s terms; holding structures, corporate wrappers, and succession documents often need to be built or adapted specifically for the Vietnamese leg of the estate. We work through succession scenario planning before a triggering event occurs — modeling how each Vietnam asset would transfer on death under current structuring, identifying where local law would override the family’s stated intentions, and adjusting the structure while all parties are still living and able to sign.

Every one of these questions is easier to resolve before a purchase, a marriage, or a death forces the issue than after. If your family has property, business interests, or succession questions touching Vietnam, we can help you and your home-country advisors get ahead of it.

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