At a time when family structures are becoming ever more diverse, patchwork families are an increasingly common phenomenon. However, the challenge of bringing together different life paths and relationships also raises complex estate planning issues. Statutory inheritance law is based on the traditional family situation and takes no account of the special interests of patchwork families. Qualified legal advice and dispositions upon death based on this are urgently required in order to avoid unpleasant surprises in the event of inheritance.<\/p>\n
Statutory succession usually not suitable<\/strong><\/p>\n Patchwork families are characterized by the fact that at least one of the two partners or spouses brings one or more children from a previous relationship into the family and there may also be joint children. \"The people involved are often unaware that stepparents and stepchildren are neither entitled to inherit nor to a compulsory portion in relation to each other according to the statutory provisions,\" says Dr. Markus Baschnagel, Managing Director of the Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg Chamber of Notaries. \"If a disposition of property upon death is completely missing in this constellation or the special legal features have been insufficiently considered, this can lead to a serious deviation from the actually intended legal consequence in the event of inheritance.\"<\/p>\n Undesirable legal consequences of incorrect estate planning<\/strong><\/p>\n The following examples show how quickly the undesirable consequences of inadequate estate planning can arise:<\/p>\n For example, if both spouses have each brought a child into the relationship without having children together and the husband dies first, his legal heirs are his child and his wife in equal shares. If the wife dies later, her child inherits alone according to the statutory order of succession. Indirectly, the wife's child therefore inherits half of the stepfather's estate in addition to the mother's assets. The husband's child, on the other hand, only receives half of his father's estate. It receives nothing from the stepmother's estate. Without corresponding regulations, the child of the longer-living partner is therefore favored.<\/p>\n If the spouses wish to protect each other in this case and therefore appoint each other as sole heirs without any further provision, the wife becomes the husband's sole heir after his death. After her death, only her child will inherit; the stepchild - in the absence of a statutory right of inheritance after the wife - will only be entitled to a compulsory portion after the death of his father. If the child fails to claim the compulsory portion in good time within the legally prescribed period, it may even be left with nothing at all.<\/p>\n If the spouses in the above example also agree that all children should inherit in equal shares after the death of the last spouse to die, the child of the husband to die first could initially claim the compulsory portion on his death and then later receive half of the wife's estate, which is not desirable in many cases. In addition, special advice is required if the spouses bring a different number of children into the marriage, because in this case, special features of the law on compulsory portions must be taken into account.<\/p>\n \"The examples mentioned show that the statutory participation of children in the estate in patchwork constellations can depend on coincidences, in particular on the order of death of the spouses and the assertion of compulsory portion claims,\" says Dr. Baschnagel. \"Skilful legal structuring, on the other hand, can avoid accidental and unintended consequences and implement the desired estate planning in a legally secure manner.\"<\/p>\n Many spouses also want to avoid a situation where the other parent of the child and ex-partner of a spouse indirectly benefits from their own assets and possibly even from the assets of the new spouse in the event of the child's death via intestate succession. This undesirable outcome can also be countered with testamentary or inheritance contract provisions.<\/p>\n Legal advice is essential<\/strong><\/p>\n There is no standard solution for estate planning for patchwork families. The right structure depends on the specific family constellation and the desired estate planning. This makes it all the more important to obtain detailed legal advice and implement the desired legal consequences in a professional manner. \"This falls within the core area of notarial activity,\" concludes Dr. Baschnagel. \"This incurs fees that are calculated according to the Court and Notary Costs Act depending on the value of the matter in question and are the same for every notary. The fees are independent of the complexity of the matter and the scope of the legal advice received.\"<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At a time when family structures are becoming ever more diverse, patchwork families are an increasingly common phenomenon. However, the challenge of bringing together different life paths and relationships also raises complex estate planning issues. Statutory inheritance law is based on the traditional family situation and takes no account of the special interests of patchwork families. Qualified legal advice and...<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notar-sawade.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}