HERITAGE PARTITION

The first thing that people who have lost a family member should know is that there is no urgency to carry out procedures, since there is a period of six months from death to settle the inheritance tax. If they can manage life insurance with insurers and, in this sense, there is a public life insurance registry in the Ministry of Justice, to consult it.

To divide the inheritance, the first thing to know is whether or not the deceased made a will. And for this, a certificate must be requested from the General Register of Last Will Acts, which is located at the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries of Madrid, providing a death certificate.

The inheritance for the purposes of its division, is divided into three parts: a third called freely available, which the deceased can dispose in favor of anyone, A third improvement, with which the testator can improve one of his heirs. And the third of legitimate that, in any case, is untouchable by the causer since it corresponds to the forced heirs. The forced heirs are the respective children and descendants of their parents and ancestors. In the absence of the above, they are the parents and ancestors with respect to their children and descendants. And the widower or widow is also a forced heir.

If there is a will, the legitimate strict is one third of the inheritance in favor of the forced heirs. If there is no will, the legitimate of the children is two thirds of the inheritance, and that of the widower / a usufruct of the third of the third of improvement if there are children and descendants, or the usufruct of half of the inheritance if there are no descendants but yes ascendants.

In practice, if there is no will, it is usual to award two thirds in full ownership to the children, and bare ownership of a third to them as well, reserving for the widower / a usufruct a third.

It is always advisable for the heirs to reach agreements to divide an inheritance, because if a judicial procedure is used for it, many procedural expenses are incurred (lawyer, attorney, appraisal experts and splitting accountant) and a very long process is carried out in time, and very unpleasant because it pit relatives against each other.