How to divide an inheritance

The Civil Code establishes the division of inheritance into three parts: legitimate, improvement and free disposal.

Legitimate

A part of the inheritance must be distributed among the forced heirs , who are:

– Children and descendants : two thirds of the inheritance; One third of the inheritance goes equally to the children, and another third, the improvement, goes to the children and grandchildren, but this third can be distributed among them or left to only one of the descendants.

– Parents and ascendants : if you do not have children or descendants, you must leave a third of the inheritance to the ascendants and half of the inheritance in other cases.

– Widow or widow : if the testator has children or descendants, he or she must leave one third of the inheritance in usufruct.

The third of the legitimate share is distributed equally among the children; If any of them have died, their descendants inherit

Improvement

It is the third of the inheritance that the testator leaves to one of his children or grandchildren, in addition to the strict legitimate inheritance, and of which the testator may have certain availability, when allocating it .

Freely available

The testator can leave it to whoever he wants, whether family member or not, and it can be a third party or a legal entity.

In order to dispose of the assets, the heirs must pay the inheritance tax within six months of reading the will. The amounts to be paid vary depending on the autonomous community and the degree of relationship maintained with the deceased.

If these assets include a home, the spouse will be able to continue enjoying it while he or she lives and the children will have the right to the property, but they cannot dispose of it during that time, but if any of them claims their share, the widower will be obliged to compensate you, even if to do so you have to sell the house in which you live.

If there is no spouse , the heirs must agree on what to do with the home : sell it, rent it or sell the part that corresponds to them among themselves; If there is no agreement, it will have to be sold at a public auction after the trial.