My father died in Morocco and I live abroad — how do I claim the house?

The five steps, and where people actually get stuck

Prove the death in a form a Moroccan registry accepts.
Establish the heirs, in a Moroccan document.
Find out what is really in the estate.
Register the transfer at the land agency.
Only then sell or divide.

Almost everyone who writes to us is stuck at step 2, often for years, and almost always for a document reason rather than a legal one.

Step 1 — the death certificate

If your parent died abroad, the foreign certificate must be apostilled — Morocco has been in the Hague Apostille Convention since 14 August 2016 — and then translated into Arabic by a traducteur assermenté, a translator sworn before the Moroccan courts.

A sworn translation done in your own country is normally refused. This single point costs people weeks, and it is the one thing you can get right before you speak to anybody.

Step 2 — the deed naming the heirs

Morocco does not work from your grant of probate or certificate of inheritance. The Moroccan document is an acte d'hérédité (iratha), drawn up before two adouls on the evidence of witnesses who know the family, and then homologated by the judge. It names each heir and states each share.

For a non-Muslim estate the equivalent is an act of notoriety, usually in notarial form. If a foreign notary drew it up, it has no effect in Morocco until it is recognised through exequatur before the Moroccan court.

Until that deed exists and is homologated, the land agency will register nothing. This is why a family can spend two years "dealing with it" and find nothing has moved: everything downstream is waiting on one document.

Which law decides who inherits — and why you should distrust a quick answer

This is live for a foreign heir in a way it is not for a Moroccan family, and the honest position is that it is contested.

Article 18 of the 1913 dahir on the civil condition of foreigners points to the national law of the deceased. A good deal of practice applies Moroccan law to immovable property on the ordinary principle that land follows the law of its place. A further rule is stated by religion.

These produce different heirs and different shares. Which applies turns on the deceased's nationality and religion, where the assets are, and whether there is a will. Settle it first, because every later step depends on the answer.

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 only within a limited share. If your family is mixed, say so in your first message — it changes the whole analysis.

Step 3 — what is actually there

Two surprises recur.

Titled, or melkia? Moroccan land is either registered with the ANCFCC, with a title number and a conclusive register, or it is melkia — a chain of traditional deeds and no title. If it is melkia, what lies ahead is not a transfer but first establishing title: longer, dearer, and occasionally not achievable.

Whose names are on it? It is common to find the deceased held a share and not the whole, or that an earlier death was never registered, so there are two estates to settle rather than one.

A land-registry search answers both and is the first thing worth paying for.

Step 4 — registering it

The transmission is registered against the title at the ANCFCC, and from that point the heirs are the owners of record. A déclaration de succession is also due to the tax authority, within a short period — reported as thirty days from the opening of the succession, extended where all the heirs live abroad. Ask about it in week one, not month six.

Costs. Published rates disagree, so treat these as ranges and not a quote. Transfers in the direct line — spouse, children, parents — are the cheap case and cover most families; sources describe them as exempt from transfer duty or as a reduced rate of about 1.5%. Outside the direct line is materially higher. Land-registry fees of roughly 1% plus the adoul or notary's costs are what actually arrives. Morocco has no inheritance tax in the sense a British or American reader means.

Step 5 — when one heir will not agree

A co-heir can petition for judicial partition, and where a property cannot sensibly be divided the court can order it sold and the proceeds split. It is slower and dearer, so it is a last resort — but its existence is usually what ends the deadlock. Judicial partition needs its own litigation mandate; the power of attorney used for the administrative steps does not cover it.

Doing it without flying over

A special power of attorney, drawn up before a notary at home, apostilled and translated, listing each act expressly: representation before the adouls, tax formalities, releasing bank accounts, signing the partition deed, selling an identified asset at a stated floor price. A general mandate for "the succession" is liable to be refused by banks and by the ANCFCC.

Any power of attorney your parent gave ended at their death. A relative holding their old mandate cannot use it to operate their accounts, and attempting it creates its own problems.

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.