Overview
- Once a succession is opened, each potential heir has 10 years to claim rights or is treated as having renounced the inheritance.
- Intestate succession applies if there is no will or a will is void, calling heirs by law: descendants first, then ascendants, the surviving spouse as provided, collaterals, and finally the State.
- The law protects forced heirs with reserved shares: descendants receive two thirds, ascendants one half, and the surviving spouse one half in the cases set by statute.
- A testament can be invalidated for legal prohibitions, formal defects, incapacity, error, fraud or violence under the Code’s provisions, which then triggers intestate distribution.
- Succession is a judicial process with declaratory, inventory, valuation and partition stages; assets remain frozen in the decedent’s name, and estates without heirs are declared vacant and turned over to the State, with later claimants required to petition and accept the goods as they are.