What this covers
- Wassiya — the Moroccan will, its form before adouls or a notary, and its limits
- Hiba — gift in the donor's lifetime, and its registration against the title
- Sadaqa and other lifetime transfers
- Whether a foreign will is effective over Moroccan property, and the law that governs it
- The one-third limit on bequests and the rule against bequeathing to an heir without consent
- Ta'asib and what it means for daughters
- The religion rule — difference of religion as an impediment to inheritance
- Mixed-nationality and mixed-faith families, and the planning that survives it
- Property held through a Moroccan company, and what that does and does not solve
- Joint purchase and co-ownership structures, and indivision you may be creating for your children
- Procuration and what happens to it on death
- Life policies, bank accounts and the practical problem of frozen assets
What a will can and cannot do here
The instinct of most foreign owners — write a will, name a beneficiary, done — does not transfer. Moroccan succession reserves shares to heirs, and the freedom to dispose by will is limited rather than general. A bequest is confined within a limited portion of the estate, and a bequest in favour of someone who is already an heir runs into further restrictions.
A will made in your own country is not useless. But formal validity and effect are different questions: a document can be perfectly valid as a will and still fail to produce the distribution you intended once Moroccan rules on reserved shares are applied to Moroccan property.
The rule that defeats mixed families
Difference of religion is treated as an impediment to inheritance. A non-Muslim does not inherit from a Muslim by operation of law, or the reverse. A will can cross that line, but only within the limited share available — which for a surviving non-Muslim spouse or child is often far less than the family assumes.
If your family is mixed, this is the fact that should drive the planning, and it is the reason to plan now rather than to leave a will to do work it cannot do.
Hiba: the step that actually works
Hiba is a gift made during the owner's lifetime. It is the instrument that moves Moroccan property where a will would be cut down, and it is effective because it operates before the succession opens rather than through it.
It is also the centre of the current reform debate. When the proposal to end ta'asib — a male relative taking a share alongside daughters — was not adopted, what was endorsed instead was wider use of hiba to let a father transfer property to his daughters in his lifetime. That is a workaround, it is entirely optional, and it only exists while the owner is alive.
The consequences are worth being blunt about:
- Hiba is a real transfer. The property stops being yours. That is the point, and it is also the risk.
- It must be properly formed and registered against the title, or it will be argued about later.
- There are duties and registry fees on it, and the direct-line treatment matters here as elsewhere.
- Done badly or too late, it invites a challenge from the heirs it was designed to exclude.
What to do if you own property here
- Establish the title position — registered with a titre foncier, or melkia. An unregistered holding is a bequest of a lawsuit.
- Establish whose names are actually on it now. Co-ownership you created casually becomes indivision your children cannot exit without a court.
- Get advice on which law will govern your estate, on the facts of your nationality, faith and residence.
- Then choose the instrument — will, hiba, company, or a combination — rather than choosing it first and asking afterwards.
- Keep the documents where your family can find them, and tell them the title number. A surprising number of estates stall because nobody knows what was owned or where the deed is.
This page states the law as we checked it on 25 October 2026. Moroccan family and procedural law is under active reform, so check anything here against the position on the day it matters to you. Any figures are typical ranges, not a quote.