The Provincial Court of Jaén has forced the value of half of a property that a mother had donated in her lifetime to one of her daughters to be included in the inventory of an inheritance, although the deed indicated that this donation should not be collated. The Justice concludes that a donation may be exempt from collationn, that is, not treated as an advance of inheritance in the distribution, but should still be taken into account to calculate whether the legitimate rights of the others have been respected forced heirs.
According to the ruling of January 22, 2026, the conflict between the brothers began with the sivision of the parents’ inheritance, requested by the daughter. In April 2025, the Court of First Instance No. 5 of Linares approved the hereditary inventory, including various assets, such as a commercial premises, a home, a bank account and part of a rural property.
A father and his children claim a farm of 161 cows and Justice turns its back: it had been in the daughter’s name for 25 years
A man keeps his 106-year-old mother’s house while he took care of her and his sisters take him to trial: Justice invalidates the operation due to possible manipulation
Despite this, the brothers appealed the sentence when they understood that the value of a property that had been donated to their sister should also be included in the inventory. Specifically, they argued that, even if the donation had been made with a snack exemption, its value should be computed to calculate the legitimate amount that corresponded to them. However, the daughter who had received the donation objected, arguing that it had been made non-collectible.
The Court clarifies that a non-collectible donation can be counted to calculate the legitimate
The Provincial Court of Jaén considered that said donation had to be taken into account when calculating the legitimate rights of his brothers, based on articles 636, 818, 1035 and 1036 of the Civil Code, which regulate the limits of donations, the calculation of the legitimate interest and hereditary collation.
In this sense, the court recalled that to calculate the legitimate inheritance (the minimum part of the inheritance that the law reserves for certain family members, such as children), it is not only necessary to take into account the assets that remain when the testator dies, but also the donations he made during his lifetime. This operation is known as computing the legitimate.
According to the ruling, article 818 of the Civil Code requires the calculation of the legitimate interest taking into account the value of the assets remaining upon the death of the testator, deducting debts and charges, and adding the value of donations. That is, to check if the children have received the minimum that corresponds to them by law, you must add what remains in the inheritance and what the deceased donated before dying.
On the other hand, the Court explained that the collation is a different operation. The collation consists of bringing to the distribution of the inheritance what a forced heir received during the life of the deceased, normally to deduct it from what would correspond to him later. Simply put, it is used to know if a donation was an advance of inheritance.
The ruling recalled that the deceased can dispense with this snack in accordance with article 1036 of the Civil Code. This means that you can expressly say that the gift made to a child is not deducted after his or her share of the inheritance.
Now, the Court clarified that this dispensation has a limit, and that is that it cannot harm the legitimate rights of the other heirs. Therefore, although a donation does not have to be collated, it must be taken into account to check whether the testator has gone too far by favoring one of his children.
According to the ruling, the exemption from snack does not mean that the donation disappears from the inventory for all purposes. The donation may not count as an advance of inheritance in the distribution, but it must be included to calculate whether the legitimate rights have been respected.
In the specific case, the Court considered that the value of the undivided half of the property that was donated should be included in the assets of the daughter’s inheritance. However, he specified that this inclusion is made only for the purposes of calculating the strict legitimate of his brothers.
This does not mean canceling the donation or automatically returning the home to the estate. What is ordered is to take into account its value at the time of the appraisal (the valuation of hereditary assets) to check whether the brothers received the minimum share that corresponded to them by law.
For all these reasons, the Provincial Court ordered the value of half of the donated property to be computed to calculate its legitimate assets. However, the sentence was not final and an appeal could be filed against it before the Supreme Court.