The children born outside marriage can claim inheritance on conditions that the paternity is established in accordance with the law. If the status of legal heir cannot be clearly deduced from civil status documents, the recognition of this status by the other heirs is one of the solutions, if the affiliation is not challenged.
Contacted by IPN, Dina Zamfirova, legal consultant at the Law House “Efrim, Rosca and Associations”, said the status of heir can be also proven by other legal means than the civil status ones. If the legal heirs do not recognize the status of heir of a person, this can be stated by a court decision, by a special procedure. Also, the child, whose parents (one of them) are deprived of parental rights, keeps the right to use the dwelling and all the property rights based on the kinship with the parents and ordinary relatives, including the right to inheritance.
Under the Civil Code, the parents deprived of parental rights, who, when the succession is opened, are not rehabilitated, cannot be legal successors of children. The same applies to adoptive parents and mature children, including the adopted ones, who intentionally avoided fulfilling the obligation to maintain the testator, if this circumstance is ascertained by court.
“The persons who have the right to inheritance (legal and testamentary heirs) obtain the status of heir by accepting inheritance. When the certificate of legal or testamentary heir is issued, the notary checks the death of the testator, the time and place of succession opening, kinship relations, the existence of the will, the content of the inheritance and its cost. The justifying documents are presented by heirs,” said the jurist.
The heirs that accepted the inheritance accept also the testator’s debts. The testator can leave a part or the whole debt to be paid by one or several heirs.
To obtain a legal heir certificate, the person must go to the notary with a number of documents, such as the testator’s death certificate issued by the Civil Status Office, documents that confirm the testator’s ownership right over property, identity papers and birth certificates that confirm the affinity, the marriage certificate and identity card of the spouse, etc. The inheritance procedure ends with the issuing by the notary of the legal heir certificate.
The legal heir certificate can be issued before the expiry of the period of six months of the opening of the succession, if the notary has sufficient evidence showing that there are no other heirs except for the persons who applied for the legal heir certificate.
The inheritance becomes state property only if there are no testamentary or legal heirs or if one of the heirs does not accept the inheritance, or if all the successors are deprived of the right to inheritance. By issuing the vacant inheritance certificate, the state becomes owner of the inheritance and this becomes public property.
According to the jurist, the most often inheritance disputes are those related to the omission of the inheritance acceptance period and recognition of the right to a part of the inheritance, ascertaining of the inheritance acceptance fact and distribution of inheritance. There are no statistics about lawsuits concerning the inheritance right.
