By Anastasia Miliou, Attorney at the Supreme Courts
Sooner or later, we will all be called upon at some point to settle the inheritance matters of a beloved relative. The inherited estate is divided into two categories: the assets and the liabilities. The assets include all immovable property (houses, plots, fields), bank accounts and other bank products (bonds, shares etc.), vehicles, jewellery, works of art and household effects. The liabilities include the debts of the estate.
If the liabilities exceed the assets of the inheritance, then the heir has the right of renunciation, which may be made within four months from the death of the deceased or from the date of publication of the will, if there is one.
For residents abroad, the deadline for renunciation is one year from the death of the deceased or from the publication of the will. If the resident abroad can prove the point in time when he was informed of the death of the deceased then the one-year deadline for renunciation begins from that point in time.
The acceptance of inheritance is made tacitly or also with a notarial deed. If no renunciation is made, it is presumed that tacit acceptance has been made after the lapse of four months.
Within six months from the death of the deceased or from the publication of the will if there is one, the inheritance tax return must be submitted to the Tax Office of the deceased.
For those who died abroad the competent authority for the submission of the inheritance tax return is the Tax Office for Residents Abroad and the deadline for the inheritance tax return is one year from the death of the deceased or from the publication of the will. In the inheritance tax return all inherited assets are declared, i.e. immovable property, money from bank accounts, contents of safe deposit boxes, cars, jewellery, works of art, household effects etc.
With a notarial deed only the immovable property of the inheritance is accepted.
When there is no will, the ‘heirs ab intestato’ are the heirs who by law are the closest relatives of the deceased. These are the children and the spouse. If the children have predeceased, their place is taken by their children (grandchildren) if any. If there are no children but there is a spouse, then the spouse and the siblings of the deceased inherit; if there are no children and no spouse then the siblings inherit, etc.
With a will, the heirs are designated according to the will of the testator in other shares or in specific assets. Also with the will, the testator is given the right to include persons who would not inherit without a will (extraneous).
The notarial deed of acceptance of inheritance may be made at any time over the years. Each person may separately from the other co-heirs accept only his own share.
Also, with the acceptance of inheritance, the heirs may accept on behalf of the deceased the inheritance which had devolved upon him at an earlier time and which he had not accepted.
E.g. father A dies, who had in his village immovable property which originally belonged to his own father B, but no acceptance of inheritance had been made when B died about 40 years earlier. We may accept first on behalf of our father A the inheritance which devolved upon him at the time of the death of his father B. If there was also a share which his wife G and mother of our father inherited, who died later, we include in the acceptance of inheritance her share too which our father A accepted, and then we accept these two shares as the inheritance of our father. This is a triple acceptance of inheritance, because it includes three deaths and three inheritance rights.
The reason why a notarial deed must be drawn up for the acceptance of inheritance is so that there is consistency, continuity and accuracy in the titles of acquisition of an immovable property, so that in case we wish to transfer it to a third party no doubts arise as to our ownership of it.
Anastasia C. Miliou is an Attorney at Law at the Supreme Courts with experience in international law and a large clientele in both Greece and abroad. Her telephone number is 6945028153. If you would like questions answered as part of her articles in English online, you can e-mail her at natmil@otenet.gr or visit www.legalaction.gr
