Overview
- Finanztip and Berliner Morgenpost released updated, plain-language guidance on Germany’s Pflichtteil, the compulsory share a disinherited close relative can still claim.
- The guide explains that eligible claimants are children, a spouse, and parents when there are no children, while siblings have no claim and grandchildren qualify only if their parent has died.
- It states that the compulsory share equals half of the legal inheritance share, is paid in cash rather than specific items, and must be demanded within three years before it expires.
- The articles stress that a testator can remove even this right only in narrow cases set by law, such as an attempted killing or a serious crime under §2333 BGB.
- For estate planning, the guidance shows how lifetime gifts affect payouts through a ten-year lookback that adds gifts back on a sliding scale from 100% in the last year to 10% in year ten, and it notes that formal disinheritance is uncommon while many couples use a Berliner Testament that leaves assets first to the spouse.