Testamentos / Wills (DCH)
 

No. 2025-06

English Abstract: 

The text deals with the concept of inheritance and hereditary succession in canon law with regard to Spain and its overseas territories in America and the Philippines. It deals with the different types of inheritance (testate, intestate and forced succession), the capacity to be an heir and the ways of accepting an inheritance. Intestate succession is dealt with in depth: the capacity to make one’s will, the modalities and content of the will; legacies, trusts, entailed estates and pious causes. This is followed by a study of the causes of invalidity and revocation of the will and testamentary execution. Further topics are the development of succession against the will (or forced succession) and the causes of disinheritance, together with intestate or legitimate succession. A section is devoted to specialities in Spanish America, such as the succession of encomiendas or cacicazgos, the fulfilment of conscientious restitutions at the moment of death, or the remission to Spain of the assets of deceased persons in the Indies whose heirs were living in the peninsula or did not exist. After a brief historiographical review, the article concludes with an appendix on the phenomenon of succession in the history of law.