A few days ago a lady asked me about the possibility of disinheriting her son. She told me that she was very hurt with him and under no circumstances did she want him to receive any property from his inheritance. The answer was, evidently, that he could disinherit him, as long as there was a reason for it.
For this reason, I asked her what her son had done to consider disinheriting him, and the lady snapped at me that she had deleted her as a Facebook friend.
This specific fact is not foreseen as a cause of disinheritance, but this is not a defect of the law, what happens is that they must be written with sufficient generality to cover a multitude of cases.
To get the point right, we have to start what disinheritance consists of, what are the causes and the way to carry it out, focusing the question on the right of Catalonia.
WHAT IS DISINHERITANCE?
Well then, disinheritance is the deprivation of the legitimate; Upon the death of a person, there are certain people who have the right to obtain something from their estate, regardless of what the will says.
Disinheritance is the deprivation of that mandatory minimum that certain people are entitled to receive. Those people who have the right to legitimate, in the right of Catalonia, are the children, and in the absence of them their descendants; and in the absence of children and descendants, the parents of the deceased person.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF DISINHERITANCE.
The causes of disinheritance are listed in article 541-17 of the Civil Code of Catalonia that says:
They are causes of disinheritance:
The causes of unworthiness established by article 412-3.
The denial of maintenance to the testator or his spouse or cohabitant in a stable relationship, or to the ascendants or descendants of the testator, in cases where there is a legal obligation to provide them.
Serious mistreatment of the testator, his spouse or cohabitant in a stable relationship, or the ascendants or descendants of the testator.
The suspension or deprivation of the power that corresponded to the legitimate parent over the deceased child or that which corresponded to the legitimate child over a grandson of the deceased, in both cases for reasons attributable to the person suspended or deprived of power.
The manifest and continuous absence of a family relationship between the deceased and the legitimary, if it is due to a cause exclusively attributable to the legitimary.
The causes of disinheritance derive from events of a certain gravity, except for the last of those listed, which shows that the lack of contact between parents and children, when it is due to a cause attributable to the children, it could be considered as a cause of disinheritance. Returning to the person who has influenced us in these comments, the fact that your son deletes you as a friend on Facebook can be considered as proof of this lack of relationship.
HOW DISINHERITANCE IS DONE
The disinheritance must be carried out in a will, codicil or succession agreement and requires the expression of one of the causes listed above and the nominal designation of the disinherited legitimary. In other words, in the will something similar to this should be recorded: "I DISINHERIT MY SON **** FOR THE CAUSE OF ***".
However, since disinheritance is a legal figure that requires the existence of a cause, the situation could arise in which the disinherited person considers that said cause did not exist, and therefore continues to have the right to receive his legitimacy. In these cases, the proof of the existence of the cause of the disinheritance will correspond to the heir, and in the absence of an agreement, between the latter and the disinherited person, it would end up being a judge who resolved the issue, determining the existence or not of the cause.
In any case, any dispute about the existence or not of the cause of disinheritance must be raised within a maximum period of four years from the death of the testator.
