Debarring from Succession - Comparing the Regulations of the Former Civil Code and the New Civil Code from 2009

• Author: Nicolae, I.
• Position: Law Faculty, Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 85-88

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 5 (54) No. 2 - 2012

DEBARRING FROM SUCCESSION –

COMPARING THE REGULATIONS

OF THE FORMER CIVIL CODE AND

THE NEW CIVIL CODE FROM 2009

Ioana NICOLAE1

Abstract: This paper presents the changes in the legal framework

regarding succession issue. These changes have been examined in light of

three hypotheses arising from the former Civil Code. The distinction between

judiciary debarring and lawful debarring introduced by the New Civil Code

from 2009 is also presented. The conditions for cancelling the effects of

debarring from succession stipulated by the New Civil Code are explained.

Finally, several legal circumstances for declaring a person unworthy of

succession are comparatively presented.

Key words: Civil Code, succession, inheritance, acceptance.

1 Law Faculty, Transilvania University of Braşov.

1. Introduction

The conditions required by the law for a

person to collect an inheritance are the

following: title to inheritance and that

person should not be unworthy to inherit.

The new Civil Code regulates the

debarring from succession in art. 958-961,

and in the former Civil Code the residence

of the matter was represented by the art.

655-658.

If in the former regulation, the indignity

was reckoned incident negative condition

in the case of the legal devolution of the

heritage, according to the optics embraced

by the new Civil Code, this sanction was

extended, according to the art. 960, to the

testamentary legacy, so that in the current

regulation “The unworthy person is

debarred both from legal and from

testamentary succession”.

2. The notion of debarring from

succession

The notion of debarring from succession

keeps its content, in the sense that it is a

civil sanction that consists in debarring the

heir who has been guilty of a serious

offence to the deceased or to his memory,

from the right to be his successor.

In the juridical literature, it was stated

that debarring from succession stood for a

civil sentence [2] based on motives of

morality, not being admissible for a person

guilty of serious offence to the deceased to

be his successor.

In the former regulation of the Civil

Code from 1864, the cases of debarring

from succession were stipulated in art. 655

and they were expressly and in a limitative

manner regulated for the following

hypotheses: