General Order of Legal Inheritance (2)

According to Article 963 of the Civil Code, in the absence of a will, legal heirs include the surviving spouse, relatives (direct descendants and ascendants, collateral relatives), and, ultimately, the state.

The Civil Code fully acknowledges the legal inheritance rights of direct descendants and ascendants (such as children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc., as well as parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.). For collateral relatives, however, this right is limited to relatives up to the fourth degree.

In defining the concepts of descendants and relatives, blood relation is decisive; thus, it does not matter whether a child was born within or outside marriage, with the exception of adoption, where a legal act establishes the family relationship.

Collateral relatives with legal inheritance rights include:

  • Siblings of the deceased – second-degree relatives,
  • Nephews/nieces and uncles/aunts – third-degree relatives,
  • Great-nephews/nieces, cousins, and siblings of the grandparents – fourth-degree relatives.

If there are no other heirs, the estate of the deceased passes to the state.

Heirs may exercise their inheritance rights in the order designated by law. The law establishes two criteria for determining the order: the class of heirs and the degree of kinship.

The class of heirs refers to the set of relatives who precede and exclude other classes of relatives from inheritance.

Article 964 of the Civil Code establishes four classes of legal heirs:

  1. Class I: Direct descendants (children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, with no restriction on degree of kinship),
  2. Class II: Privileged direct ascendants (parents) and privileged collateral relatives (siblings),
  3. Class III: Ordinary direct ascendants (grandparents, great-grandparents, with no restriction on degree of kinship), and
  4. Class IV: Ordinary collateral relatives (aunts/uncles, cousins, siblings of the grandparents).

Relatives are called to exercise their inheritance rights in the order of the legal classes, so an heir in the first class excludes those in other classes. A relative from the second class can inherit only if there are no heirs in the first class, or if those in the closer class are unable or unwilling to exercise their inheritance rights.

Within the same class of heirs, a closer relative in degree of kinship excludes those further removed; for example, a child excludes a grandchild from inheritance. (There are two exceptions: 1) within Class II – parents, despite being first-degree relatives, do not exclude the siblings of the deceased, who are second-degree relatives, and 2) inheritance representation.)

If heirs belong to the same class and degree of kinship, they inherit in equal shares.

We will continue with the inheritance rights of the surviving spouse, who is considered an independent heir with respect to each class of heirs!