When a person dies, that person's assets and debts pass to the heirs immediately, on the date of death, without waiting for any court order. What does require a court order is the authority to deal with the property: withdrawing bank funds, or registering a transfer of land. The heirs hold their rights from day one, but cannot exercise them against third parties until an estate administrator is in place.
If the deceased left a will, the will governs first. Assets the will does not cover, and estates with no will at all, are divided according to the statutory order of heirs. That order is strict. Closeness, years of care during illness, and spoken wishes do not change the order and do not increase anyone's share.
The six classes of statutory heirs
- First class: descendants, meaning children, and grandchildren or great-grandchildren taking by representation where a child died first.
- Second class: parents.
- Third class: brothers and sisters of full blood.
- Fourth class: brothers and sisters of half blood.
- Fifth class: grandparents.
- Sixth class: uncles and aunts.
The rule is that an earlier class excludes every later one. If the deceased left children, the deceased's siblings take nothing. There is one exception: where there are first-class heirs, the parents still share, taking a portion as though they were another child. Heirs within the same class take equal shares.
The surviving spouse's share
A surviving spouse is always a statutory heir, and receives on two counts. First, that spouse's own half of the marital property, which must be separated out and is not part of the estate. Second, a share of the estate alongside the other heirs, the size of which depends on which class of heirs survives. Separating marital from personal property is covered in the article on marital property.
- Where there are descendants, the spouse takes a share as though an additional child.
- Where there are no descendants but there are parents, or brothers and sisters of full blood, the spouse takes one half of the estate.
- Where only fourth to sixth class heirs survive, the spouse takes two thirds of the estate.
- Where no heir in any class survives, the spouse takes the whole estate.
Spouse here means a spouse by legal registration only. Living together without registering, however long, creates no right to inherit as a statutory heir. Since 23 January 2025 marriage may be registered between two people regardless of gender, so every registered couple has the same inheritance rights.
Adopted children, children born outside marriage, and debts
- A child whose adoption has been registered inherits from the adopter in the same way as a child of the family. The adopter, however, does not inherit from the adopted child as a statutory heir.
- A child whose father was not married to the mother can inherit from the father where the father acknowledged the child in fact, for example by registering the birth, allowing use of the family name, or openly supporting the child.
- Debts pass with the assets, but an heir is not liable beyond the estate property received. Creditors cannot reach an heir's own assets.
- If there is no heir and no will, the estate passes to the State.
A further point causes regular confusion: some money is not estate property at all. Life insurance proceeds with a named beneficiary pass directly to that beneficiary, and so do funds where the rules of a provident fund or an employer scheme name the recipient. These are not divided among the statutory heirs, so the documents for each item should be checked before any division is calculated.
The time limits to watch
Inheritance claims are barred sooner than most people expect. An heir who has been shut out or has not received a share must bring the claim within one year from the date they knew, or ought to have known, of the death, and no more than ten years after the death itself. The exception is an estate that has not yet been divided and is held by another heir or the administrator on their behalf: an heir may still sue for partition after those periods. A creditor of the estate is likewise subject to a one-year period from learning of the debtor's death.
Once it is clear who the heirs are, the next step is to appoint an estate administrator to collect the assets, settle the debts and then distribute the shares correctly. Which court to apply to, what documents are needed and how long it takes are covered in the article on appointing an estate administrator.
This note states the general position and is not advice on your own situation. The actual shares depend on which heirs were alive at the date of death, the status of each child, and which assets were marital property. Send the firm a family tree and a list of the assets and it will set out who the heirs are and what each one receives.
Sources
- Civil and Commercial Code, Book VI (Succession): section 1599 on the estate devolving on the date of death, section 1629 on the six classes of statutory heirs and the position of the surviving spouse, and section 1630 on an earlier class excluding a later one.
- Civil and Commercial Code, section 1633 on equal shares within a class, and section 1635 on the share of the surviving spouse taking alongside each class of heirs.
- Civil and Commercial Code, section 1601 on an heir's liability being limited to the estate property received, section 1627 on the position of an acknowledged child born outside marriage and of an adopted child, and section 1753 on an estate without heirs passing to the State.
- Civil and Commercial Code, section 1754, imposing a one-year period from knowledge of the death and an outer limit of ten years from the date of death.
- Supreme Court Judgment No. 5764/2537 (1994): a child born outside marriage whom the father raised as his child and allowed to use his surname is a child acknowledged by the father, and is therefore a descendant entitled to inherit on intestacy under Sections 1627 and 1629.
- Supreme Court Judgment No. 1276/2558 (2015): a registered adopted child is a descendant in the same way as a legitimate child under Section 1627, and the surviving spouse inherits a share under Sections 1629 paragraph two and 1635 even after consenting to another person acting as administrator and taking no part in the estate, so long as the spouse has not renounced the inheritance under Section 1612.
- Supreme Court Judgment No. 1533/2557 (2014): the one-year limitation in Section 1754 applies to an heir not in possession of the estate; where the estate remains undivided and another heir holds it on that heir's behalf, the heir may sue for partition under Section 1748 even more than ten years after the death.
- Office of the Judiciary, for succession cases