The Provincial Court of Cáceres has rejected the claim of a woman who claimed to include almost 200,000 euros in the inventory of the inheritance of her deceased aunt, who had donated during life to other nephews, claiming that this money should be distributed among all the cousins, who were the heirs. Justice considers that she was excluded from that donation and that this money does not have to be included in the inheritance because it was the subject of a fully valid inter vivos donation, accepted by the other four nephews (her cousins) years before the aunt’s death.
According to the ruling of September 26, 2025, the woman asked to expand her inheritance to increase her participation in inheritancealleging that the money was still deposited in bank accounts that were in the name of the deceased aunt, so it was understood that there had been no effective transfer during her life. However, the documentation showed that in 2015 the deceased had signed a donation contract through which she gave four fifths of her savings to four nephews, keeping only one fifth.
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The Court of First Instance of Trujillo agreed with him and ordered to include in the inventory of the inheritance the amounts given through the donation to the other four nephews, understanding that they were part of the hereditary estate.
The money no longer belonged to the aunt and, therefore, is not part of the inheritance
The Provincial Court of Cáceres revoked the ruling in the first instance and stressed that the 2015 donation met the requirements of article 632 of the Civil Code, which allows donations of personal property and bank deposits to be formalized by private document if there is acceptance by the donee. In this case, the aunt expressed her willingness to donate and the nephews expressly accepted, so the money ceased to belong to the deceased at that very moment.
Furthermore, the Court highlighted that the four beneficiary nephews acted as true owners of the money, since they appeared as joint owners of the accounts, declared the interests in their personal income tax and maintained economic control of the capital, although they promised not to withdraw it until death. For the court, these facts proved that the ownership of the money was transmitted during life.
He rejected, therefore, that it was a mortis causa donation and added that these funds could not be integrated into the inheritance because the aunt had no forced heirs, so that in accordance with articles 807 and 1035 of the Civil Code, there was no obligation to collation nor to return or compute donations to balance the inheritance.
In conclusion, the Court noted that the niece did not prove that the money belonged to the aunt at the time of her death, and, therefore, it cannot be included in the estate. He also clarified that the existence of accounts in the name of the deceased is not enough to annul the donation if there is documentary evidence that the ownership of the money changed during her lifetime.
However, the sentence was not final and an appeal could be filed against it before the Supreme Court, provided that the legal requirements were met.