Overview
- Argentine law reserves mandatory portions for close family, with descendants entitled to two thirds of the estate and both ascendents and the spouse to one half.
- If there is no valid will, inheritance follows a legal order that prioritizes descendants, then ascendents, the spouse and collateral relatives up to the fourth degree.
- When no legal heirs exist, the estate is declared vacant and assets pass to the State at the national, provincial or municipal level where they are located.
- A will can be declared null for legal prohibitions, formal defects, incapacity, error, fraud or violence, which converts the case into an intestate succession.
- Experts urge naming substitute heirs and keeping wills updated since being named heir confers no property rights before death and a sole heir who predeceases the testator can force an intestate process; intestate cases proceed via notary by agreement or in court through declaration of heirs, inventory and valuation, administration and partition.