The Provincial Court of Pontevedra has ordered to include in an inheritance 46,000 euros that the widow of the deceased took out of her husband’s accounts before he died. His heirs (daughters of the deceased) had claimed it and justice considers that this money cannot be considered a donation from the deceased to the wife, so he has to return it to the estate so that it can be distributed.
According to the ruling of February 26, 2026 during the judicial division of the husband’s inheritance, the daughters had reported that the widow had transferred thousands of euros from their father’s bank accounts to her own accounts shared with a niece a few days before the death.
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The widow argued that these amounts responded to economic rights derived from the marriage and also demanded compensation for the years dedicated to caring for her husband and home. However, the Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 1 of Cangas refused to include the 46,000 euros withdrawn by the widow as a debt against the estate.
The Court concludes that the money must be returned to the inheritance
The Provincial Court of Pontevedra, for its part, considered it proven that the widow had transferred the money from her husband’s exclusive accounts to others in her name, and that it was notable that the movements had been made a few days before her death, without also being able to justify what the destination of that money had been.
The joint ownership of a bank account It does not automatically imply that the money belongs to all the co-owners. This is detailed in the ruling in which the consolidated doctrine of the Supreme Court was applied according to which the joint ownership of an account does not presume the joint ownership of the funds deposited in it.
It was rejected that these transfers were a donation, and according to the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, in Spanish law the intention of giving a gift is not presumed and any delivery of money is in principle considered onerous until the contrary is proven. That is, whoever maintains that there was a donation must prove it.
Therefore, the magistrates concluded that the widow acted as a “mere depositary” of the money or, where appropriate, as a borrower, with the obligation to return it to the estate. They ruled out applying article 1035 of the Civil Code, which regulates the donation collation between heirs, because it was not even proven that the deceased knew or authorized those banking provisions.
For this reason, the Court ordered to redo the hereditary distribution to include as an asset the credit of 46,000 euros owed to the widow. However, the sentence was not final and an appeal could be filed against it before the Supreme Court.