If I have no children, can I leave my estate to whoever I like in Catalonia?

Question

José Manuel Alburquerque · Accepted Answer

Almost. If your parents are alive, or one of them is, they are entitled to the forced share (“legítima”), which is a quarter of the value of the estate. If they are not alive, you can leave everything to whoever you like. Siblings, nephews and nieces and the rest of the family have no forced share. Your spouse or your partner in a “pareja estable”, a Catalan stable partnership, could claim the widow's quarter (“cuarta viudal”) if, with their own assets and what you leave them, they do not have enough to meet their needs. What has to be respected The parents' forced share. It entitles them to be paid that value by the heir. The gifts you make in your last ten years also count when calculating it. It can only be taken away from them on a ground provided for by law, such as a lack of family relationship for which they alone are to blame. It is lost if the father or mother dies without having claimed it in court or by a formal demand served through a notary. The widow's quarter. A spouse or stable partner who does not have sufficient resources can claim what they need, up to a quarter of the estate. The rights of the surviving spouse or stable partner that do not depend on the will, such as keeping the clothes and furniture of the home or continuing to live in it for a year at the expense of the estate. This applies if the estate is governed by Catalan law. Under the Spanish Civil Code (“Código Civil”), the forced share of the parents, or of the grandparents if the parents are not alive, is half the estate, or one third if there is a surviving spouse. The surviving spouse is also entitled to a share in usufruct. How to do it With a will made before a notary. You can appoint one person, several people or an organisation as heir and leave legacies of specific assets to others. It is advisable to appoint substitutes in case the heir dies first or does not want the inheritance. Without a will, the law decides. The heirs are, in this order, the spouse or stable partner, the parents and other ancestors, the siblings and nephews and nieces and the other relatives up to first cousins. If there are none, the Generalitat de Catalunya (the Catalan government) inherits. What it costs in tax Anyone who inherits without being a close relative pays quite a lot. Siblings and nephews and nieces only deduct 8.000 euros from what they receive and the resulting tax is multiplied by 1,5882. Cousins and people who are not related deduct nothing and the tax is multiplied by 2. A friend who inherits 100.000 euros pays about 18.000 and a sibling, about 12.900. These rules apply if, in the five years before your death, you have spent more days in Catalonia than in any other autonomous community.