A Death in Hong Kong with Assets on the Mainland: Why One Estate Can Be Governed by Two Systems

The question many people ask

Most people assume that assets follow their location: the Hong Kong flat and the Hong Kong bank account go by Hong Kong law, the Mainland flat and the Mainland deposits go by Mainland law, and each side is settled on its own. Location alone is not enough: it controls the immovables, while domicile controls the movables.

What actually decides which system governs an asset is not its location alone. It is two factors crossed: first, whether the asset is immovable (land and buildings) or movable (bank deposits, shares, chattels); and second, where the deceased was domiciled at the moment of death. Immovables answer to the law of the place the property stands in. Movables — wherever they happen to sit — answer to whichever system the deceased was domiciled in when he died. Cross those two lines and a single death can be governed by two succession regimes at once, with different beneficiaries and different shares.

This guide covers Hong Kong law: how Hong Kong's own rules decide which system applies, what the Hong Kong court's jurisdiction reaches, and what the Hong Kong side will require of you. Every question that turns on Mainland law — who is an heir there, what the Mainland process requires, what a Mainland body will do with a Hong Kong grant — is one for a Mainland lawyer.

The short version: one death, two succession regimes

What decides which law divides your father's flat and his bank account is two different connecting factors, not one. The Law Reform Commission put it plainly in its April 2005 report Rules for Determining Domicile: where a person dies intestate, what happens to the movables — wherever in the world they happen to sit — falls to be decided by whichever legal system the deceased was domiciled in on the day of death, whereas everything to do with the immovables answers instead to the lex situs, meaning the system in force where the land itself lies. Twelve years afterwards the Department of Justice set out the identical proposition, in its own drafting, at footnote 7 to Annex A of its paper to the LegCo Panel on Administration of Justice and Legal Services, CB(4)240/17-18(03), for discussion on 27 November 2017.

Two Government bodies, twelve years apart, on the same rule. The rule is received English common law, and both papers are a Government body's statement of a common-law rule.

Crossing the two lines gives an estate that straddles the boundary four cells, not two:

Two of the four cells match the common intuition — the Mainland flat going by Mainland law, and the Hong Kong flat staying under Hong Kong law. Both immovables follow the place where the property is. The two that do not are the movable cells, which follow domicile. The most counter-intuitive is the top-left: if the deceased died domiciled outside Hong Kong, the law that decides who takes his Hong Kong bank account is not Hong Kong's law; meanwhile the Hong Kong flat stays under Hong Kong law irrespective of where he was domiciled.

A second pair of ideas has to be kept apart: which court may deal with an asset, and which law decides who takes it, are different questions. Section 24A(1) of the Probate and Administration Ordinance (Cap. 10) defines assets in expressly territorial terms — but the definition has to be read together with the scope it sets for itself:

*The words "In this section" cannot be dropped. Section 24A is headed Affidavit concerning assets and liabilities of estate*; the definition governs what goes into the schedule exhibited to the supporting affidavit, not the extent of the court's jurisdiction. The provision that does address the court's jurisdiction is section 3, and section 3 itself attaches no situs limit:

Section 3(1) attaches no situs limit at all, and section 3(2) confers jurisdiction expressly "notwithstanding that the deceased person left no estate". So the territorial boundary is not something that can be got out of section 24A's definition. But it is not an optional Registry convention either: the Judiciary states it as the probate jurisdiction of the Hong Kong court itself. At paragraph 2.3 of its Probate Registry page the Judiciary says that the probate jurisdiction of the Hong Kong court, the Probate Registry included, covers the estate in Hong Kong only; that estate outside Hong Kong — the Mainland and Macau expressly named — has to be dealt with and administered according to the relevant law and regulations of the place where it is situated; that section 24A confines assets and liabilities to those within Hong Kong; and that estate outside Hong Kong is not to be included in Specified Form N4.1. (This site's summary of paragraph 2.3 of that page.) So the accurate statement is in three parts: what a Hong Kong grant operates on is the Hong Kong estate; section 24A defines the scope of the schedule exhibited to the affidavit; and that territorial boundary is the Judiciary's own statement of the court's probate jurisdiction.

The line described above is drawn — for movables — by domicile. The two lines do not coincide, and that produces a situation worth stating on its own: an asset can need a Hong Kong grant before anyone can deal with it, while the law that decides who is entitled to it is not Hong Kong's. That is what 〈two unconnected processes〉 actually means in practice.

The two sides never merge:

Public probate materials generally do not spell this dividing line out.

And the boundary line, for the first time — there are two of them. The first: what is described above is where Hong Kong's own rule points. Once it points to the Mainland, what that law says, who counts as an heir and how shares are calculated are questions of Mainland law.

The second boundary is less often drawn and matters just as much. The table above states Hong Kong's first-order connecting rule only — movables refer to the law of the deceased's domicile. *Whether that reference is to that place's internal succession law, or to its whole law including its own conflict-of-laws rules — the common-law doctrine of renvoi — is not settled. The Law Reform Commission took the point up at paragraphs 4.192 to 4.193 of the same 2005 report: the domicile legislation of Manitoba and South Africa expressly excludes renvoi, and the Commission's own words are that it appears* the common-law renvoi doctrine also applies to Hong Kong, but that because the doctrine concerns matters other than the rules for determining domicile and may have broader implications, it should be dealt with more thoroughly in another forum — that is, Hong Kong's domicile legislation deliberately left it alone. That layer can change which system's internal succession law finally applies, so any answer about final shares belongs with a conflicts specialist.

Domicile is not simply where somebody lived: since 1 March 2009 it is a statutory question

The switch for the whole problem is domicile, and since 1 March 2009 domicile in Hong Kong is settled by an Ordinance, and determined by a Hong Kong court in accordance with Hong Kong law. The Ordinance is the Domicile Ordinance (Cap. 596).

Section 3, the general rules, in full:

Put plainly: everybody has one; nobody has two at the same time for the same purpose (so there is no such thing as 〈domiciled on both sides〉); and when it is disputed in a Hong Kong court, Hong Kong law decides it.

What does it take to acquire a new domicile? Section 5(2):

There are two limbs here and most people remember only the first. Presence is one limb; an intention to make a home there for an indefinite period is the other. Length of residence is not itself the test. Somebody who has lived in Hong Kong for thirty years on a Hong Kong identity card, but who has always intended to return to his home village in old age, does not have his domicile settled by the sentence 〈he lived in Hong Kong〉. The reverse is equally true.

Then comes the provision most easily overlooked on this topic — section 10, which deals with a country made up of two or more territories:

The Law Reform Commission's paragraph 1.2, in the same 2005 report, explains why this matters here. Domicile ties a person to one legal system — the report's term for such a unit is a "law district" — and the report counts four of them within the People's Republic of China: the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

*How is most closely connected decided? That does not have to be guessed at: the Ordinance has a section devoted to it — section 11, headed Closest connection.* Subsection (1):

And subsection (4) of the same section:

Those two subsections make an important correction. It is tempting to read section 10 as meaning that because the test is most closely connected, nationality, an identity card and an address are simply beside the point. That is not what the Ordinance says. Section 11(1) says that in deciding that very question "account may be taken of any relevant matter" — and a nationality, an identity card and an address are each capable of being a relevant matter. They are not the test; they are not irrelevant either. Section 11(4) supplies the other half: whatever is taken into account carries whatever weight is appropriate in all the circumstances of the case. *So the accurate word is weight, not exclusion.*

To what standard? Section 12:

And a point that affects a large group of readers — and it does appear on an official page: the Ordinance is not retrospective. Paragraph 11.6 of the Judiciary's Probate Registry page states it in terms: for deaths before 1 March 2009 the common law determines the domicile of the deceased at death, and for deaths on or after that date it is governed by Cap. 596. (This site's summary of paragraph 11.6 of that page.) The provision itself is section 13:

So if the domicile to be determined is a domicile at some moment before 1 March 2009 — a death before that date, for instance — the old common-law rules decide it, not this Ordinance.

There is also a common word that is not accurate. It is often said — the Judiciary's own practice guide says it at paragraph 57 — that Cap. 596 abolished the common-law rules on domicile. The section does not say that. Section 14(2)(a):

and subsection (4) of the same section:

And between those two subsections sits one that is rarely mentioned: section 14(3) names the common-law rules the legislature had in mind, and there are seven of them. In full:

Paragraph (3)(g) is where the section 12 balance-of-probabilities quotation above comes from. At common law a change from a domicile of origin to a domicile of choice attracted a more onerous standard of proof; section 12 brings every fact under the Ordinance down to the balance of probabilities, and section 14(3)(g) is what names the old rule as one of those displaced. Read without section 14(3), the section 12 quotation is left hanging.

In one line: displacement to the extent of inconsistency, not repeal — and any common-law rule the Ordinance does not reach is still in force. Why does the difference matter? 〈Abolished〉 means the old rules are gone and need not be consulted. 〈Displaced to the extent of inconsistency〉 means asking, point by point, whether the Ordinance actually differs from the common law on the matter in hand. But that work does not start from nothing — for the seven rules in section 14(3) the legislature has already done the naming, and what has to be asked case by case is confined to rules outside that list. (Note that subsection (3) says "include (without limitation)", so the list is not closed.)

One last point. The Ordinance has been in force since 1 March 2009. Two things to remember: the test is statutory; and what the Probate Registry will in practice want by way of evidence of domicile is the Registry's own published practice, not case law.

Why Cap. 645 provides no court-to-court route

There is an Ordinance made specifically to carry judgments between Hong Kong and the Mainland, and it excludes succession by name — in both directions. It is the Mainland Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance (Cap. 645), which came into operation on 29 January 2024. Section 5(1), opening words and limb (b):

Read the subject of that sentence — the disjunction is the Ordinance's own: "a Mainland Judgment or a Hong Kong Judgment". It is not only that a Mainland judgment cannot come south. A Hong Kong judgment cannot go into this Ordinance's machinery either. Section 5(1) has ten limbs, (a) to (j), and succession sits at (b), second — ahead of intellectual property, maritime matters, insolvency, elections and arbitration. It is not something added at the end of a residual list.

One thing has to be said plainly here: Cap. 645 is not the only reciprocal-enforcement Ordinance between the two places. It is the one that carries civil and commercial judgments generally. Two others are in force. The first is Cap. 597, whose own section 1 provides that it may be cited as the Mainland Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Ordinance; it deals with civil and commercial judgments given pursuant to a choice of court agreement between the parties. Its status in the legislative text is In effect. Cap. 645 names it twice, in section 5(2) of the very section quoted above:

The second is Cap. 639, which deals with judgments in matrimonial and family cases; its status is likewise In effect, and the Bills Committee report referred to below names it twice, at paragraphs 31 and 32. So the accurate statement is not that there is only one Ordinance, but this: the Ordinance that carries civil and commercial judgments excludes succession, administration and distribution of an estate by name and in both directions, while the other two are directed by their own long titles at other subjects.

Why is it there? There is an official answer, and it was given during the passage of the Bill. In 2022 the Bills Committee scrutinising the Bill asked exactly that question: these are judgments courts on both sides commonly make, so why exclude them? The Administration's answer, recorded at paragraph 32 of the Committee's report CB(4)895/2022, had three parts: first, that the substantive laws of the two places differ considerably in the area of estate administration, including the grant of representation itself and the powers and duties of the administrator; second, that the exclusion was agreed by both sides, the Supreme People's Court and the HKSAR Government having agreed that judgments on those matters should be left out of the arrangement; and third, that the existing practice for cross-boundary estate cases involves the use of notarised inheritance documents, and that those arrangements had been operating effectively.

That paragraph is the legislative history of a Hong Kong Ordinance — what was said, and what was agreed, when it was passed; it is not a statement of what Mainland law provides.

And from that legislative history one genuinely useful conclusion follows. Most families reaching this point assume the documentary route is a fallback they have been pushed into because no court order is available. It is not. On the Government's own explanation to the Bills Committee, the documentary route is the mechanism the two sides knowingly left in place as the alternative to reciprocal recognition of judgments — not a gap somebody failed to close. Understanding that saves the time otherwise spent hunting for a shortcut that does not exist and was never meant to.

The other route readers always ask about — resealing a foreign grant in Hong Kong — is covered in a separate guide. It is governed by Part IV of the Probate and Administration Ordinance, whose Schedule 2 lists five designated countries or places, and both the power to change that list and the condition attached to it are in the Ordinance itself. Our published guide, Grant of Probate and Letters of Administration , sets out Schedule 2 in full, section 49, section 49A and the whole of Part IV, including which places are not on the list.

What the Hong Kong side will ask you for: evidence of foreign law

If the deceased died domiciled outside Hong Kong, the Hong Kong application will often run on an expert affidavit about the other place's law — on limbs (b) and (c) of rule 29; limb (a) usually does not need one, as set out below — which means you need a Mainland lawyer for the Hong Kong file, not only for the Mainland one. That is the opposite of what most people expect. But there is a large and common exception — so the rule is set out below in full, proviso included.

The switch is rule 29 of the Non-Contentious Probate Rules (Cap. 10, sub. leg. A). How the Registry actually works that rule is set out in the Judiciary’s *Guide to Non-Contentious Probate Practice* (PDF; the Guide is published in English only), and paragraphs 250 and 257A relied on below are in that Guide. In full:

Three things to notice. First, the rule opens "Where the deceased died domiciled outside Hong Kong" — if the deceased was domiciled in Hong Kong, none of this machinery engages at all and the ordinary route applies. Second, of the four limbs (a) to (d), the first two are keyed to the place of domicile: who was entrusted with administration by the court there, or who is entitled to administer under the law there.

The third is the most important, and it is in the proviso at the end. Limb (b) of that proviso says that where the whole of the estate in Hong Kong consists of immovable property, a grant limited to it may be made in accordance with the law that would have applied had the deceased died domiciled in Hong Kong — and it does so "without any such order", that is, without the Registrar making an order under the rule at all.

How does foreign law get into the Hong Kong process? Rule 18, in full:

The rule says the affidavit "may be accepted", not "shall be accepted". The difference is not small: foreign law is not something a Hong Kong court knows of its own motion. It is a fact to be proved by evidence, and the Registrar has a discretion.

Read that alongside the previous section and the two instruments are consistent: the other system's law enters the Hong Kong process as a witness; its judgments on this subject do not enter through Cap. 645. ⚠ Note the limit, because s.5(1) states it in its own opening words: the exclusion is "For the purposes of this Ordinance". It says these judgments are outside that Ordinance's reciprocal-enforcement machinery. It does not say they have no effect in Hong Kong by any other route.

On Mainland cases the Registry's own published practice states that two limbs are live. The Registry's Guide to Non-Contentious Probate Practice has a passage devoted to Mainland cases: before 1997 most applications were made under rule 29(c), on the strength of duly authenticated certificates of inheritance issued by the appropriate Mainland authority, and by practice no affidavit of law was required; after 1997 the practice began shifting to rule 29(b), where what is put in is a Mainland lawyer's affidavit as to the law; and the Guide records that as matters stand both limbs remain available, the choice turning on what evidence is to be put before the court. (The above is this site's summary of paragraph 250 of that Guide.)

The same Guide adds that on either of those two limbs the application will usually have to be backed by evidence of the other place's law establishing that the applicant may, under that law, take on the administration or apply for the grant. Two items on its checklist for the affidavit change what the family thinks it is being asked to prove:

• *First: what the affidavit has to establish is who ranks first for the job of administering, or for taking the grant out — not who stands to benefit.* Families arrive with the answer 〈we are the heirs〉. The Registry is asking a different question.
• Second: the affidavit has to address whether the estate needs a grant at the place of domicile at all and, where one is needed but none has been sought, account for that.

But paragraph 250 is about choosing between (b) and (c). It is not the whole of rule 29 — the rule's own limb (a) is a separate route. Limb (a) is a grant to "the person entrusted with the administration of the estate by the court having jurisdiction at the place where the deceased died domiciled". The same Guide's summary table at paragraph 257A lists that limb separately from (b) and (c): limb (a) requires a foreign grant, order or decree to be filed, and against it the table's affidavit-of-law column records that one is usually not needed, its remark distinguishing administration from inheritance; against the (b) and (c) rows the same column records that an affidavit of law is required. (This site's summary of the paragraph 257A table.) So a flat "rule 29 always needs an affidavit of foreign law" is an overstatement: whether one is needed turns on which limb is used. Whether a particular Mainland instrument amounts to a court there entrusting the administration is a question of Mainland law.

Taken together those two items are the most practical answer to which side to start with. There is a genuine link between the two legs; it points northwards from Hong Kong; and its character is evidential. What Hong Kong insists on is not that the northern step be finished — it is that you explain why it has not been. Those are very different sentences.

(In passing: the Guide also sets an expectation about the seniority of the foreign-law expert.)

Not a bridge — two one-way routes running in opposite directions

The documentary route between the two places is not a bridge that carries traffic both ways. It is two separate one-way routes, with different gatekeepers, and Hong Kong's own estate materials document only one of them.

Coming south — a Mainland public document used in Hong Kong. The Judiciary's Probate Registry page states, in both languages, that the established practice for a public document issued by a Mainland authority involves two steps: first obtaining a notarial certificate from the notarial office in the locality, then having that certificate sent on to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which certifies that the notarial office's signature or seal is genuine. (This site's summary of paragraph 13.5 of that page.) Note that this is not the one-step apostille route; the same page explains that the one-step route is for countries and territories that have joined the relevant Hague Convention. Which places are on that list can be checked on the Hague Conference website.

Going north — Hong Kong facts used on the Mainland. This route runs through a China-Appointed Attesting Officer. What is worth knowing is that the process does not end when the attesting officer signs: on the attesting officers' association's own description of its procedure, the signed instrument then goes to a separate body for checking, is stamped with a transmission chop and forwarded, and only then comes back to the client. Your Hong Kong solicitor is not the last stop. (This site's summary of that association's page.)

The two routes are not the reverse of one another, and the gatekeepers differ. More striking still: Hong Kong's own estate materials describe only the one coming south.

The Judiciary's Guide handles a Mainland document by testing its authentication. In the Chinese text of the statute book, the title appears in these three places —

• Solicitors' Practice Rules (Cap. 159H): 中國委託公證人, one of the honours or titles that may be stated on a solicitors' firm's letterhead against a named person.
• Solicitors (Professional Indemnity) Rules (Cap. 159M): 中國委託公證人 — the identical spelling — as one of the capacities listed inside the definition of Practice.
• Chief Executive Election Ordinance (Cap. 569), Annex 6 Bodies Specified for the Legal Subsector: 中國委托公証人協會有限公司, spelt 中國委托公証人 — and what is specified there is the incorporated association, not the profession.

No Hong Kong enactment creates the special appointment itself, and none licenses it — the appointment belongs to the Mainland Ministry of Justice's system. That must not be read as meaning no Hong Kong-regulated person stands behind the instrument: the two sets of rules above say in terms that 中國委託公證人 is one of the titles a Hong Kong practising solicitor may state, and one of the capacities inside the definition of Practice in the Solicitors (Professional Indemnity) Rules. The people doing this work are Hong Kong practising solicitors, and in that capacity they remain regulated under the Cap. 159 rules.

Then comes an inversion that catches a great many people out. The Registry's Guide records that where a notarial certificate goes to kinship, the Registry will not ordinarily treat it as establishing the relationship, and authenticating it properly does not change that; its role is corroboration, and only where nothing direct is available. But the same Guide states that a marriage certificate issued by the appropriate Mainland authority requires no authentication at all, and that a true copy may be produced where producing the original is inconvenient. (This site's summary of paragraphs 116 and 214 of that Guide.)

Price: the association's own page is explicit that fees are settled between the attesting officer and the client, that there is no single published scale across the profession, and that anyone wanting a price has to ask an attesting officer directly.

Time: several figures are published, and not one of them is a total for the whole exercise. The same page says that, in the ordinary case, once the client has handed over all the documents and information required, the attesting officer needs roughly a week to complete the procedure and issue the instrument. Note where the clock starts — the day the documents are complete, not the day you instruct someone. The Hong Kong Probate Registry is different: it does publish figures, and every one of them carries its own trigger. Paragraph 11.1 of the Judiciary's Probate Registry page says a simple and straightforward case usually takes about 5 to 7 weeks on average, and that where the application is not simple and straightforward, or the estate is complicated, it may take longer. Paragraph 17.1 says a Public Application Section case takes about 5 weeks once all court fees are paid and all requisitions have been complied with. Paragraph 17.2 is the pledge for solicitor-filed applications: letters of requisition, if any, within 28 working days of filing, and the grant within 28 working days once fees are paid and requisitions are complied with. (This site's summary of paragraphs 11.1, 17.1 and 17.2 of that page.) Every one of those runs from "simple and straightforward" or from "all conditions met", not from the date of death, and a cross-boundary estate is rarely the simple and straightforward case. So none of them can be added to that week to build a total.

And the boundary line again. Whether the Mainland body that will use the document ultimately accepts it, and on what terms, is a Mainland question. Even the association's own page only describes its own procedure, and contemplates a draft being taken north for that body's view. That is practice, not entitlement.

Hong Kong law already legislated for two systems — and it solved only half the problem

This is not a new problem and the legislature did not overlook it. In 1995 a section was added to the Intestates' Estates Ordinance (Cap. 73) whose entire premise is that an intestacy here and an intestacy elsewhere may both be running on the same death. That section is 8A. Start with its heading:

*The heading reads "Application where surviving spouse or other person acquires an interest under foreign law" — note or other person, not the spouse alone.* Subsections (1) and (2) handle the spouse: what you acquire under a foreign intestacy law is valued as at the date of death and set against the statutory net sum you would otherwise take here, and should that foreign value come out higher than the net sum, the Ordinance then runs as though the net sum and the interest on it had never been mentioned in it at all. Subsections (3) and (4) extend the same bringing-into-account to beneficiaries other than the spouse.

Subsection (5) is the one that costs the family money:

If no beneficiary acquires an interest under a non-Hong-Kong intestacy law, section 8A does not call for this valuation and the expense does not arise. Note that this condition is not the same as "every asset is in Hong Kong": on the table above, if the deceased died domiciled outside Hong Kong, movables sitting in Hong Kong may still fall to be distributed under a non-Hong-Kong intestacy law, and section 8A can engage on that footing.

Working the numbers

The calculation below works from the mechanism of provisions already cited, to show how section 8A(2) operates. It is not an assessment of any individual reader's case. Assume the deceased left a spouse and issue (the section 4(3) family structure), that interest from the date of death to the date of payment or appropriation is zero, and that debts and costs are left out:

• Section 8A(2) diminishes only the net sum and the interest on it. It does not touch the personal chattels, and it does not touch the spouse's half of the residue.
• Section 4(3)'s structure is: the residuary estate (other than the personal chattels) is charged with the net sum plus interest first, and what remains is then divided in half — half to the spouse, half on the statutory trusts for the issue.
• So every dollar taken off the charge falls back into the divisible residue, and the spouse takes fifty cents of it.
• In other words: what the surviving spouse loses in Hong Kong by having taken something abroad is half of whichever is smaller — the value of the foreign interest or the net sum. As a formula: ½ × min(foreign interest, net sum). The other half goes to the issue.
• So on this family structure the spouse's loss is capped at half the net sum, not at the net sum. Section 8A(2) can only diminish the net sum and the interest on it, so the diminution itself is capped at the net sum; and for every dollar diminished the spouse takes fifty cents back out of the residue.

On the current amount of either net sum, note a power written into the Ordinance itself. Section 4(13) allows the Legislative Council by resolution to vary either or both net sums, and it does so by providing that a reference to a net sum has effect as a reference to the corresponding varied sum — in other words, a resolution changes what the reference means without leaving any amendment mark in the text of Cap. 73. So the consolidated text cannot prove the current amounts. The figures, and the whole of section 4's distribution, are in our published guide Dying Without a Will in Hong Kong .

And here is this section's sting. Section 8A requires the Hong Kong personal representative to establish, and value as at the date of death, what a beneficiary acquired under a non-Hong-Kong intestacy law. The previous section showed that the Ordinance carrying civil and commercial judgments between the two places, Cap. 645, excludes judgments on succession, administration and distribution by name, and excludes them in both directions. The obligation sits in Hong Kong; what it needs sits on the other side.

The next sentence has to be written precisely, because it is easy to overstate. What is closed is the route for recognising a judgment: a Mainland succession judgment cannot come through Cap. 645's machinery. That is not the same as saying the information cannot get here. Two provisions quoted in full above show how it does: rule 18 of Cap. 10 sub. leg. A (set out in the section on evidence of foreign law above), which is how an expert's sworn evidence of the other place's law comes before the Registrar, subject to the Registrar's discretion; and section 8A(5) of Cap. 73 (set out in full above), which puts the personal representatives under a duty to instruct a properly qualified valuer where the subsection (2) and (3) valuation calls for one. The law is proved by affidavit and the value is established by a valuer. The real difficulty is not the absence of a route. It is that both routes are ones the family must pay for, staff and pursue itself, and neither of them can compel anybody on the other side to produce anything.

On recognition: Cap. 645 provides no route. A separate passage of the same 2017 Government paper points to a common-law basis on which the courts here may give property-law effect to a succession judgment from elsewhere.

Which side do you start with?

Nothing in the published material requires either side to go first — but that does not make the order unimportant.

Hong Kong's own decision tree exists, and this reader is routed away from its sequencing branch. The Judiciary's guide to the specified forms has a passage on where to apply. It tells the applicant that, in considering whether to apply first in Hong Kong or in another place, they must take account of where the deceased was domiciled, and that the law of the place of domicile may affect both the entitlements to the estate and who is entitled to apply. Then comes the branch: if sections 48 to 52 of Cap. 10 apply — that is, if the domicile is one of Schedule 2's five designated places — the guide points the applicant towards taking out the grant where the deceased was domiciled before coming to Hong Kong to have it sealed. If sections 48 to 52 do not apply — and a Mainland-domiciled deceased falls here — the guide addresses a different question altogether: which form to use where a foreign grant has already been obtained, and which to use where none has. In other words, within this branch the guide routes by whether a foreign grant already exists: one already obtained goes on F2.1 — that is, rule 29(a) — and where none has been obtained the forms are F3.1 (rule 29(b)) or F4.1 (rule 29(c)). (The guide itself: *Guide to the use of the Specified Forms for Probate Registry* , where that routing is at paragraphs 3.3 to 3.5. The forms themselves: *Deceased Domiciled in Foreign Country* , which lists F2.1, F3.1 and F4.1 in Word and PDF under the heading Application for Order under Rule 29, and F1.1 to F1.3 under the separate heading Sealing of Foreign Grant. ) That routing is not merely a form number: it also settles which limb of rule 29 you are on and what evidence you have to file. And paragraph 3.3 says in terms that the law of the place of domicile may affect both the entitlements to the estate and who is entitled to apply — so the passage cannot be read as meaning a foreign grant affects the form alone. (This site's summary of paragraphs 3.3 to 3.5 of that guide.)

Nor does the published list on the other side call for a Hong Kong grant of letters of administration. On the attesting officers' association's page, the materials required for the kinship-and-testamentary-status declaration are the declarant's identity documents, the deceased's death certificate, proof of the relationship between them, and proof of the deceased's marital status. Three further items are listed as required only "if any" — and all three exist only where there was a will: a grant of probate, letters of administration with will annexed, and the will itself. A genuine intestacy cannot produce any of the three. (This site's summary of that page.) So the published material does not require it.

The hardest clock in the whole exercise is on the Hong Kong side, and it is criminal — though it is not immovable, and the way out is set out below. Section 60J of Cap. 10 makes intermeddling with an estate an offence. Subsection (8):

Read the opening words: "In subsections (6) and (7)". The 12-month and 18-month prescribed periods exist for subsections (6) and (7) only, and those two subsections bite on an executor, or a person entitled in priority to the administration of the estate. The offences created by the other subsections of section 60J are not subject to that period at all. The remaining limbs of section 60J, its penalties and its exemptions are set out subsection by subsection in our published guide Grant of Probate and Letters of Administration .

Now read the opening of subsection (6) itself, because most accounts drop its first five words. Section 60J(6), in full:

Two points. First, the offence is conjunctive: (a) and (b) — the person must both have taken possession of or in any way administered part of the estate within the period and have failed to submit an application within it. Subsection (7) covers taking possession or administering after the period has expired without having first submitted an application. A family that has touched nothing commits no offence under this section at the twelve-month mark.

*Second, "Subject to section 60K(9)" — subsections (6) and (7) both open with those words, and they are not decorative. Section 60K is headed Exemption from section 60J for estate not exceeding $50,000*. Subsection (2):

And subsection (9) states what the notice does:

This is a live route for one group of readers: a deceased domiciled on the Mainland whose Hong Kong assets are a single small bank account — subject to conditions and limits that are published outside the Ordinance and set out below. The conditions are narrow — the property must be money only (a flat or a shareholding puts the estate outside it), not exceeding $50,000 in aggregate, and the deceased must not have held any property as trustee or as manager of a Tso or Tong at the date of death. Where they are met, the Secretary may issue a confirmation notice, and while it is in force section 60J(3), (6) and (7) do not apply to the property on its schedule. That figure is fixed in the text of the Ordinance: Cap. 10 contains no power to vary it by resolution or Gazette notice.

Outside the section there is a further set of published conditions and limits, and anyone taking this route needs them. The Home Affairs Department's Administration of Small Estates page adds to the statutory conditions that the deceased must have left no debts — the page names tax liabilities, loans, overdrafts and credit-card debt. The same page states three further things: a confirmation notice is not a substitute for a grant of representation; the bank retains a discretion whether to release the money; and the person who receives it remains under a legal duty to administer it properly. On timing, the Department publishes a target of 12 working days to issue the notice. (This site's summary of the Home Affairs Department's Administration of Small Estates page.) So this is not "a piece of paper that does the work of a grant" — it is an exemption from section 60J, not a grant.

And of the two periods, only one is available to this reader. The eighteen-month period attaches to "an application for sealing of a grant under section 49" — the resealing route, which as set out above is controlled by Schedule 2's list of designated places. So this family is running against the twelve-month period, not the eighteen-month one.

Add one more point that is rarely made: section 60J(1)(b) confines the offence to what was in Hong Kong at the moment of death. In other words, time spent waiting on the Mainland leg creates no Hong Kong criminal exposure of its own — but it spends the Hong Kong window all the same. That is the actual mechanism by which starting in the wrong order turns from an inconvenience into a criminal risk.

So how long does the whole thing take? There are three statements, and they cannot be added together.

• One fixed period: twelve months, criminal, running from the date of death, binding an executor or a person entitled in priority to the administration who has taken possession of or administered part of the estate (section 60J(6) and (7)), and subject to the section 60K(9) confirmation-notice exemption.
• Two first-party figures: roughly a week for the attesting officer's step, running from the day the documents are complete; and the Home Affairs Department's published target of 12 working days to issue a small-estate confirmation notice.
• A set of published figures, each with a trigger: on the Judiciary's figures for the Probate Registry — about 5 to 7 weeks on average for a simple and straightforward case (paragraph 11.1); about 5 weeks for a Public Application Section case once fees are paid and requisitions complied with (paragraph 17.1); and, for solicitor-filed applications, requisitions within 28 working days of filing and the grant within 28 working days once fees and requisitions are complete (paragraph 17.2). Each runs from the point at which its own conditions are met, none from the date of death, and a cross-boundary case is rarely the simple and straightforward one.

There is therefore no reliable 〈three to six months〉 or 〈six to twelve months〉 estimate for the cross-boundary exercise, and these figures cannot be added together.

Why Hong Kong's rule looks like this: a contrast from 2012

The movable/immovable split is not a design nobody thought to question. Another design was enacted in 2012 — and the jurisdiction from which Hong Kong received this rule chose not to take part in it.

Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 recites, at recital (37) (reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0):

It is worth being precise about what that passage is. It is a recital — a statement of what the Regulation should achieve. Its stated aims are certainty and the prevention of a succession being broken into pieces; its stated means is a single applicable law reaching the entire estate, whatever kind of asset is in it and wherever that asset happens to be.

And a second point of precision matters more: that unity principle has an exception inside the Regulation's own operative text, so it is not absolute. Article 30, headed Special rules imposing restrictions concerning or affecting the succession in respect of certain assets, is a residual lex situs override (reproduced under the Open Government Licence v3.0):

In other words: where the State in which certain immovable property, certain enterprises or other special categories of asset are located has special rules imposing succession restrictions for economic, family or social reasons, and those rules apply under that State's law irrespective of the law governing the succession, they apply anyway. That does not dissolve the contrast — unity is the Regulation's general rule and Article 30 a confined exception, whereas in Hong Kong the movable/immovable split is the rule itself — but the 2012 design is not an unqualified single-law principle.

Recital (82) of the same Regulation:

So the United Kingdom and Ireland were not taking part in the adoption and were not bound by it — and the same recital records that this did not rule out their later notifying an intention to accept it. That is the position as recorded in 2012.

The contrast that comes out of it is this: the fragmentation this reader is living through is precisely the harm another system legislated against in 2012 — at the very moment when the jurisdiction Hong Kong received this rule from was not taking part. In other words, the two systems went different ways on the same question: one takes unity as its general rule, while Hong Kong continues to run the movable/immovable split. Recital (82) proves only that the United Kingdom and Ireland were not taking part in that Regulation; it cannot prove what Hong Kong legislators had in mind.