Inheritance, be it legitimate or testamentary, is a legal act through which the person liable transfers his or her assets (property, rights and duties) to other people. The regulation of inheritance in Spain determines: the purpose of the goods of the deceased, the testament validity requirements and the necessary procedure for the distribution of the hereditary goods.
For the sake of efficiency and time management, the EU will unify the rules on succession rights of foreigners. Decisions taken by a Member State will be binding everywhere within the EU territories, and will not be subject to further revisions.
The European Certificate of Succession certifies the capacity, all over the EU territory, of an heir and the powers of any administrators of a succession of a person having interests, properties or descendants in various countries of the EU.
Disinheritance is the deprivation of a legitimate heir. In Spain it can only be done by will and based the legally established causes you will find in this article.
In order to safeguard and protect the property and inheritance rights in Spain, an estate has legal standing to sue and be sued.
From August 2015 on there will be new rules in international inheritance law; from that date on, the applicable law will be the one from the country where the deceased last lived or had his regular residence.
When a person in Spain dies without drawing up a will, the heirs are determined based on a declaration of heirs, which can be made before a notary when the stated heirs are ancestors, descendants or a spouse, or before a judge in the remaining cases.
Executors of wills in Spain are those appointed by a testator to fulfil the testator’s last will. Executors can be named jointly, successively or severally and perform on a voluntary basis and free of charge. He must report about his functions to the heirs.
In Spain, it is particularly difficult to disinherit a child because the Spanish Law on Inheritance obliges estates to be divided into three parts. Two thirds belong to the heirs: one third of which would correspond exclusively to the compulsory heirs —in Spanish, this part is called legítima (legitimate); the other third is aimed to improve any of the heirs’ portion as the testator wishes.
The private international law proposes a series of possibilities about the regulation of hereditary titles related to foreign countries. It is worth noting that this is a very complex matter since it seeks to harmonize different legal systems.
The inheritance and donation tax in Catalonia has modified many of the quantitative elements of the tax in order to make it more effective e.g. an escalation for bonuses are introduced. However, its application of bonuses implies a substantial reduction of other bonuses provided in the tax. Nonethless, this new scenario highlights the necessity to review alternatives for better and efficient taxation.