Transmission rights

The Supreme Court (TS) analyzes a case of inheritance "in chain" (several successive deaths) and decides how the so-called transmission rights work.

The facts begin with the death of a woman without a will . In principle, her husband and her three children inherit. Then, one of those children dies without having accepted or rejected the inheritance from his mother. That child was married, so his wife has the rights that the law recognizes for widows (especially, the widow's usufruct). Later, the father (the "transferor") also dies without having completed the process of accepting or rejecting his wife's inheritance. Finally, the other two surviving children execute deeds and distribute the inheritances awarding themselves assets (including a property that came from the first deceased), but without considering the widow of the child who died in between.

The key discussion was whether the final heirs acquire that inheritance directly from the first deceased, or they acquire it through the inheritance of the child who died without deciding (that is, first passing through his inheritance).

The TS opts for the so-called theory of double transmission where the right to accept or repudiate the inheritance passes to the heirs of the transferor by being their heirs , so that what comes from the first inheritance is integrated into the estate of the transferor.

Practical consequence? That this integration affects the calculation of the rights of the transferor's widow (her widow's usufructuary share and other legitimate rights), and for that reason she must intervene in the partition , what is distributed in the inheritance of the first deceased economically impacts what corresponds to her in her husband's inheritance.