Actors within the inheritance process
- Deceased: person who transmits his estate due to his death.
- testator: the person who established a testament.
- heirs: person or group of persons receiving the estate of the deceased.
- legatee: person who receives certain individual assets of the deceased but not a share of the inheritance.
- trustee: is the person charged by a testator or a judge to fulfill the last will of the deceased and custody of the assets.
Types of inheritance
Within the successions due to death or succession mortis causa, two classes are distinguished depending on whether the deceased has established his will in the form of a testament:
- Probate succession: It is the hereditary succession that has its cause in the will of the deceased manifested in a valid testament. The deceased can freely dispose of his property after his death, with certain limitations, attributing ownership of the property to the people he desires, for which he must fix his last will in life through a testament.
- Legitimate is a limitation that imposes the law imperatively on the ability of the testator to distribute the inheritance, by obligating that a portion of it is reserved in an obligated manner to certain family members, called by this heirs forced or legitimised. This cases happen applying Spanish or French Law.
- Ab-intestato succession, is that succession that occurs when the decedent’s testament is missing with respect to all or part of the assets. The order of succession for this type of succession is as provided in the Law. The order of habitual occurrence in a large number of countries includes in this order, descendants, ascendants, spouse, collaterals and The State last.
Inheritance, as a legal act, also involves the liquidation of a succession tax. The regulations that regulate inheritances come from both the European Union and the country in which the inheritance will be carried out.