Inheritance issues

Late application submission

The application must be submitted before the expiration of 6 months from the date of death of the testator. There are situations when other unscrupulous heirs can hide from you information about the death of the testator or state bodies and organizations will not notify you about this. If you miss 6 months, it will be necessary to restore your rights through the courts.

"Wrong" notary

Any notaries (both public and private) have the right to draw up an inheritance, but not every notary undertakes to open an inheritance case, citing the lack of documents. Sometimes the refusal of a notary to open an inheritance case is only for the good.
Remember the main thing - you choose the Notary conducting the inheritance case once!
(there is a theoretical possibility to change a negligent notary to a qualified one, but it takes a long time, with nerves and through the court)
There is a common opinion that a public notary is more reliable and cheaper than a private one, but this is far from always the case:
a) Most competent public notaries have long since become private.
b) For causing damage to the client, a private notary is liable with his personal property and career, and the state is responsible for the state (in case of problems, you will have to sue the state).
c) The cost and quality of services of a private notary can be negotiated, but it is impossible with a public notary.
If you do not consider yourself competent enough in choosing a notary, ask us.

Misconceptions about your share in the inheritance

The heir's most common mistake is to think: "We lived together, everything is mine here." And it’s very unpleasant to suddenly find out that there are applicants for your property and were hiding behind the terms “heirs of the first, second, etc. queue" or compulsory share heirs in inherited property. It is not uncommon for situations when, even after receiving the rights to an inheritance, after some time you have to participate in lawsuits initiated by “heirs” about which you have never heard all your life and did not even suspect that they take place and the right to claim your property.

The heir does not know about everything that he inherits

People do not always know what they have the right to claim, and this, in addition to the classic trio “apartment-cottage-car”, can be cash deposits in a commercial bank or savings book, money in deposit accounts, credit cards, non-banking financial organizations, scholarships, pensions, alimony, social benefits, compensation for damages, moral damages, penalties, deductions for publications or royalties, jewelry, works of art and antiques, etc.
On the other hand, by inheriting something, you inherit not only rights, but also obligations.
For example, by inheriting an apartment, you can inherit an unpaid mortgage, loan, or debt on that apartment.
There are frequent cases when, in the middle of the procedure for registering the inherited “house in the village”, the heir suddenly realizes that it would be cheaper for him to refuse the inheritance, because for the money and time already spent this house cannot be sold, and he will not live there.
At the same time, it must be remembered that it is impossible to accept only the “profitable” part of the inheritance, but refuse from unprofitable loans and obligations.
You must either accept the entire inheritance or refuse everything.
Therefore, before accepting an inheritance, it is better to collect information about the entire estate - about all movable, immovable property and funds for which you can claim, as well as about the obligations that remained after the testator.

Missing, invalid or lost documents

At the stage of opening and in the process of conducting an inheritance case, the notary will need various documents: from those that confirm the death of the testator and prove the fact of a related (and not only related) relationship to the deceased, to those that give grounds to claim the inheritance and determine the composition, volume and size of the inheritance. For example, it is impossible to inherit real estate if it was not registered in the name of the deceased in accordance with the law. The absence of such documents can lead to loss of inheritance.
Another common problem is errors, typos, misprints, or dilapidated documents.
“To err is human”, including passport officers and employees of registry offices and other officials who, by virtue of their duties, enter or print in documents the Surname, First Name and Patronymic, place of birth and registration, other data by which a person can be identified. Mistakes of this kind in passports and birth certificates are not uncommon. There are especially many misunderstandings with the translation of surnames between Russian and Ukrainian. As a result, it is impossible to formalize the inheritance without appropriate corrections. Depending on the document in which the error occurs, the issue is resolved either by filing a special application or through the court. In addition, old documents are so dilapidated that they are not accepted.

Lack of time and qualifications

There will be a lot of “paper work” and most often there are either no documents or they simply cannot be found (it is not known where the deceased kept them). There is a need to restore lost and / or lost documents, send requests to archives, and receive duplicates. If you have a job, spending time on this paperwork can create a dilemma - "Job or Legacy".

There is no documentary evidence of the fact of cohabitation

People living with the testator in the same apartment all their lives do not even think about the fact that a legally unconfirmed fact of cohabitation can lead to the loss of the right to inherit. This is especially common in families who tried to optimize issues related to the privatization of housing or speed up the receipt of municipal housing by manipulating the registration of family members. As a result, it turned out that in fact people live together, but are legally registered in different places.

Dishonest relatives and unworthy heirs

From cases of unworthy behavior of heirs and relatives, you can assemble a large encyclopedia.
It is surprising what metamorphoses occur with loved ones when it comes to the division of inheritance:
- they can simply hide from you that there is a will in your favor
- you can be assured that they have no claims to the inheritance and at the same time quietly apply to a notary
- you took care of a bedridden sick person for a long time, and those who have never even visited him claim the inheritance
- at the family council, the relatives verbally agreed on the distribution of the remaining inheritance, but the most cunning ones took care of everything
- one of the heirs deliberately creates conditions that do not allow other heirs to receive an inheritance
- you accepted the inheritance, and after a while a relative appears whom no one knew about and demands his share
- ... this list is endless