What is legitimate succession or succession by law?

The overwhelming majority of successions in Italy occur without a will. Successions by will are only 20%. On the one hand, this indicates that deaths are often unexpected and sudden; on the other, that a "culture of wills" does not yet exist. There are those who do not do so for fear - unjustified - of having the inheritance taxes passed on to their heirs and, therefore, prefer to make donations (which, however, are subject to the same rate as inheritances). There are those who, to avoid disputes over their death, while they are still alive, register their assets in the names of their family members, not knowing, however, that, even in this case, such acts can be contested up to 10 years after death. Thus, every time a will is missing or declared invalid, the designation of the heirs occurs by virtue of the provisions of the law.

The inheritance is transferred in the first instance to the spouse (husband or wife), to legitimate and natural descendants (children and children's children). Then, in natural or adoptive) and to collaterals (natural and adoptive siblings) and, finally, to any other relatives.

In the presence of multiple subjects entitled to inherit, the most remote relatives are excluded, in decreasing order of degree of kinship (for example, the fourth degree of kinship is excluded first, then the third and so on), following the principle of graduality.

According to the law, in fact, kinship can be of two types:

• in a direct line (father-children, grandfather-grandchild) in cases where the people descend directly from each other;

• in a collateral line (brothers and sisters, uncle-niece, cousins) in case the people, despite having a common ancestor, do not descend directly from each other.

Relatives can never inherit by legitimate succession but only if there is a will. Therefore, parents-in-law, brothers-in-law, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law never inherit in the absence of a will.

To summarize, and except as we will explain better later, the legal system identifies the following subjects as able to inherit and other relatives up to the sixth degree.

Who inherits if there is no will.

As we have said, in the absence of a valid will, the law identifies which relatives inherit and to what extent.

The general rule is that the closest relatives exclude the more remote ones.

We summarize in the table the relatives called to inherit and the shares attributed to them.

Surviving spouse

As specified in the table, the spouse (or the civil union party) is the only heir when there are no children, ascendants and brothers/sisters of the deceased.

If there has been separation, the spouse has the right to the inheritance unless he has suffered the blame, i.e. the fault for the end of the marriage. In this case, he is only entitled to a lifetime allowance if he was receiving maintenance at the time the succession was opened.

When the marriage has been declared void after the death of one of the spouses, the surviving spouse in good faith succeeds as if he were a spouse in all respects, therefore the general rules apply, including succession in the tenancy agreement.

However, he is excluded from succession if the deceased at the time of death is linked by a valid marriage to another person.

When there are children with the spouse, the spouse is entitled to half of the inheritance if only one child contributes to the inheritance, and to a third if there are more children.

The spouse always has the right to live in the former marital home, regardless of ownership of the same.

In the absence of children, two thirds of the inheritance is devolved to the surviving spouse if he/she has ascendants or brothers and sisters even if unilateral, or with both. In this last case, the residual part is devolved to the ascendants, brothers and sisters, except in any case the ascendants have the right to a quarter of the inheritance.