What to do to accept an inheritance
The procedure for accepting an inheritance consists of several stages - from the realization that you have become an heir and now you need to do something to receive the inheritance (or refuse it).
We have divided all the necessary actions into a series of logical steps.
To receive an inheritance, at a minimum, it is necessary that the inheritance itself be determined.
Therefore, to start inheritance, you need to have information:
- who and when from relatives and friends died;
- what is the size and composition of the inheritance;
- whether there is a will;
- composition of heirs.
We answer these questions, think, analyze the consequences acceptance or failure from inheritance.
Decide on the key question: is it necessary to accept the inheritance at all?
If you decide that you still need an inheritance, go to the next step ↓
Within 6 months from the date of death, you must submit an Application for acceptance of the inheritance.
Important!
If you decide to receive an inheritance - Don't put off submitting your application. It is better to do this in the first days / weeks. Why? - Because the one who first submits an application will become the “main heir” and not in terms of the priority of receiving an inheritance, but because other heirs will no longer be able to come to “their” notary and open “their” inheritance case. The place of opening of the inheritance case and the notary who will open it may be only one. Therefore, everyone who except you will claim the inheritance will be forced to contact "your" notary.
Until the final decision to accept or not to accept the inheritance - you will have another six months from the date of opening the inheritance case, but from the moment you submit the Application for Acceptance of Inheritance, your right to the inheritance is already protected: no one but you can get it. So apply quickly!
Before the expiration of six months, we finally make a final decision: if we decide not to accept the inheritance, then before the expiration of this period, we reject the notary's application for acceptance of the inheritance.
* If the deadline (six months) is missed, then we go to court to establish an additional deadline.
All documents that you will need in order to enter into inheritance rights can be formally divided into two types:
A) primary or basic
Passport, TIN, death certificate, certificate of residence of the deceased, document confirming the relationship and / or will (if the deceased left it).
These documents are enough for the notary to open the inheritance case.
In other words, you do not need to collect a full package of documents in order to claim your rights to the inheritance (and thereby protect yourself from losing it).
B) Title documents
If you inherit property, then the notary must see documents that confirm that the deceased was the owner of this property. For example, if you inherit an apartment, then there must be documents that confirm that the deceased was the owner of this apartment.
After you have submitted an application for acceptance of the inheritance to the notary, he opens the Inheritance file and issues you an extract on the registration of the inheritance file.
From now on, you are considered the person who accepted the inheritance.
What to do next? – Wait for the issuance of the Certificate of Inheritance, which will be issued to you by the same notary who accepted the Application and collect missing documents for the property you would like to receive.
If you are the only heir and everything is in order with the property documents of the deceased, then, as a rule, there are no special problems.
In case of difficulties with finding the necessary documents, we turn to a notary who can help with this, since he has the necessary rights and access to state registers. Precisely because it is not known in advance which documents are available and which ones will have to be requested, notaries quite often (and quite objectively) cannot say exactly when the certificate of inheritance will be issued on the day of application.
In any case, you will have enough time to have complete information about the inheritance and collect, on your own or with the help of a notary, the necessary documents that confirm the ownership of the deceased testator to movable and immovable property that is included in the inheritance.
If there is only one heir, there are no questions. What to do when there are several heirs? - In this case, there is a need for the division of the inheritance.
The division of the inheritance is carried out after the acceptance of the inheritance by the heirs and is formalized by the relevant agreement.
Only the heirs who accepted the inheritance can be participants in the division transaction.
According to the results of the section, the notary must indicate share of each heir in the Certificate of Inheritance.
The heirs agree on their shares and on options for allocating property in kind.
It is better to negotiate than to decide this case in court. Of course, the court in any case will determine the size of the part and the procedure for dividing the property, but the court means nerves, money spent, damaged relationships ... Therefore, it is advisable to agree.
After six months (if everything is in order with the testator's documents on the ownership of the property), you can get a Certificate of inheritance from a notary.
The notary issues a Certificate of the right to inheritance to each of the heirs who are entitled to it, with the definition of their names and shares in the inheritance.
If there are problems with the documents for the testator's ownership of the inheritance, then we continue to deal with these problems: without the necessary documents, the notary will not issue a Certificate of the right to inheritance.
At this step, in fact, the process of inheritance ends.
If you have not received a Certificate of Inheritance, you will not be able to take ownership of yourself, which means that you cannot freely use the inherited property.
A classic problem is that the heir was left with an apartment after the death of his parents. In view of the fact that he is the only heir and is registered in the same place where his parents were registered, the heir believes that nothing can be done. At some point, the heir decides to sell the apartment, finds a buyer, agrees on a price, they go to the notary to formalize the sale, and then it turns out that the notary cannot formalize the sale and purchase transaction, since there is no document confirming that the heir is the owner of the apartment. That evidence would be that document.
Re-registration of ownership of real estate is carried out by a notary. Therefore, the notary, together with the Certificate of Inheritance, will re-register the ownership from the deceased (testator) to you (heir) and issue you an extract from the State Register of Property Rights to Real Estate.
Congratulations, from now on you are a full-fledged owner of the property!