The Provincial Court of Tarragona has invalidated the will of a father who disinherited his daughter (the law allows it to be done in these cases) and his grandchildren to leave the entire inheritance to his new wifedeclaring her as his universal heir. In this way, justice supports the daughter’s claim for her legitimate share of the inheritance. The decision is based on the fact that it was not proven that the breakdown of the family relationship was exclusively attributable to her.
According to the ruling issued last October, the conflict over inheritance began when, upon the father’s death, in his will, he had disinherited his daughter and his grandchildren for manifest and continued absence of family relationship, one of the reasons for disinheritance included in the Catalan Civil Code in its article 451.17.2.
He estrangement to which the father alluded, occurred years before his death when the father remarried, This being the moment that marked the beginning of estrangement with his daughter. However, despite this supposed distancing, father and daughter had continued to have contact in the last years of the man’s life, she even visited him on several occasions when he was in hospital, and that is why he claims his legitimate part of the inheritance (which corresponds to the forced heirs).
Justice considers that the daughter has the right to the legitimate part of her father’s inheritance
The claim was initially rejected by the Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 2 of El Vendrell (UPAD), which considered the disinheritance valid when it understood that the legal requirements were met. They indicated that the absence of a family relationship referred to in the will as a cause of disinheritance was attributed only to the daughter who “He did not maintain contact with the deceased for more than a decade, nor did he want to integrate his father’s new partner into his life.”
Given this decisionthe daughter filed an appeal in which she argued that there was reconciliation in the last years of her father’s life. To do this, he provided hospital visits and records of telephone calls that demonstrated regular contact. In the appeal he added “There is no sufficient and continuous cause to justify the disinheritance, much less evidence that attributes this situation exclusively to me.”
After the appeal, it has been Provincial Court which revoked the decision of the Court of First Instance The cause of disinheritance of the daughter has been declared null and void.
For the Audience There is no conclusive evidence that the lack of relationship between father and daughter was solely attributable to the latter.and added that “The disinheritance clause should be considered null and void, given that evidence of reconciliation has been provided in the last months of the deceased’s life.”
The court focused its decision on the Catalan regulations that regulate causes of disinheritance. As explained at the beginning, article 451.17.2, which regulates these causes, establishes that one of them is “the manifest and continued absence of a family relationship between the deceased and the heir, if it is due to a cause exclusively attributable to the heir,” something that is not demonstrable in this case.
Furthermore, using previous jurisprudence, it clarifies that these causes must be interpreted restrictively, and in this case the daughter managed to prove that contact with her father had been reestablished before his death, which invalidated the basis of disinheritance.
An important point of the ruling is that, despite the fact that justice has recognized the daughter’s right to the legitimate part of her father’s inheritance, The amount that corresponds to him from his father’s legacy has not been determined, since at the beginning it had not been requested. To determine the exact value of the inheritance that corresponds to you, a new judicial process must be initiated.