Hereditary community

The Supreme Court (TS) has annulled a previous judgment and has authorized the sale atpublic auction of the assets of an inheritance due to theimpossibility of distributing them fairly among the heirs.

The case begins after the death of two individuals, whosepatrimony was mainly composed oftwo rural estates, one of them with a building. The5 heirs failed to reach an agreement on how to distribute the assets. For that reason, the process ended up in court, where aneutral person(the accountant-partitioner) was appointed to make the distribution.

This professional decided to assign tothree heirs collectively one of the estates and required them topay almost 10, 000 euros each to the other two heirs, who would receive their share in cash and in another estate. However, those who were supposed to pay argued that theydid not have enough money, as evidenced by the fact that they receivedfree legal aid and lived on pensions.

After several appeals in court, the SC analyzed the case and emphasizes that the law aims todistribute the assets asequitably as possible, but that it is not always feasible. When there are indivisible assets (such as those estates) and there is not enough money in the inheritance to compensate everyone, the law allows, if at least one heir requests it,to sell everything at a public auction and the moneyto be distributed among the heirs.

The SC, seeing that none of the heirs could pay the others and thatforcing them to continue as co-owners made no sense, upheld their appeals. Thus, it orders the public auction sale of the assets, admittingexternal bidders, and thesubsequent distribution of the money, instead of keeping the distribution approved by the court.

In disputes over inheritances, our professionals can advise you on the defense of your claims and rights.