The Primary Justification for Creating a Spanish will

If you write a Spanish will, you can be certain that your final wishes will be carried out clearly and precisely.  This is due to the fact that you will sign a Spanish will in front of a notary public in Spain as well as one in any other nation.  The Notary notifies the Registry of Last Wills in Madrid of the signing date and location if you sign the will in Spain.  In order for the will to be registered if it is signed somewhere else, the notarized copy needs to be forwarded to the Madrid Registry of Last Wills.  The original is then returned to you; however, if you sign the will in front of a Spanish notary, the original is kept by the notary.

In order to administer your estate and have the assets transferred into your beneficiary name, the beneficiary of your estate who own property or have other assets located in Spain must obtain a Certificate of Last Will from the Registry of Last Wills.  The date and location of the Spanish will, together with whether it was made in Spain or, if registered as previously said, somewhere else, will all be included in that certificate.  If you have a Spanish will prepared and signed by a Spanish Notary, a certified copy will be available to one of the beneficiaries.  It will be quite evident what your goals were when you produced it, since it was written in Spanis with the intention of being read and understood by the Spanish authorities.  Moreover, there's no possibility of it getting lost or damaged.

What risks come with not creating a Spanish will?

If you decide not to write a Spanish will and instead rely on a will prepared in accordance with the laws of another jurisdiction, the person in charge of managing your Spanish estate will need to appoint someone who is sufficiently qualified or has experience handling cross-border estates.  Many Spanish attorneys could take on these issues even though they have little to no prior expertise with them.  Many of them have little to no experience with cross-border estates, thus they will be dependent on the Spanish Notary to give them advise.  There's a good probability that managing your estate will be overly complicated and time-consuming.