Inheritance and Debts: What to Do?

Questioner

My father-in-law passed away about 4 months ago. I am now trying to arrange all the financial matters for my mother-in-law. It recently became known that my father-in-law had a school worth 60,000 euros with the tax authorities. Nobody knew anything about this. Inquiries with the tax authorities revealed that they first want to know whether the inheritance has been accepted before they want to sit down with them to find a solution/waiver. My in-laws had no will and were married in community of property. Has my mother-in-law now automatically inherited my father-in-law's debt? Can the debt/inheritance still be refused after 4 months? My mother-in-law has to survive on an AOW that she will only receive in 7 months. Paying off this debt is therefore impossible. Advice and/or help would be very welcome,

Lawyer

In principle, the debt is inherited. There is no term linked to rejection or beneficiary acceptance. However, this action is not possible if there is already a tacit pure acceptance. Under certain circumstances, the subdistrict court judge can request authorization to accept beneficially after all. If there is any doubt as to whether the estate is positive or negative, it may be advisable to accept beneficially. However, this does entail a number of obligations. For more extensive advice, please contact me.

Lawyer

In addition to the above. The tax debt is part of the community of property dissolved by the death of your father-in-law and therefore the creditor / tax authorities can recover all assets that your father-in-law and mother-in-law had / have together. Assuming the most common situation that, in addition to the community property, there is no separate private property on the side of your mother-in-law (i.e. assets that are not part of the marital property community), it probably does not matter to your mother-in-law with regard to the tax debt whether she accepts or rejects purely or under benefit of inventory. Should she reject, then the children (including your husband/wife) must ask themselves what this means for them. After all, acceptance (including beneficiary acceptance) means that they take over their father's position as debtor to the Tax Authorities and can therefore be called upon to pay. If they accepted/have accepted purely, then their own assets can also serve as a means of recovery for the Tax Authorities. In short, first make a good arrangement/description of the total marital property regime and the inheritance included therein and then discuss with all heirs (i.e. mother and children) and preferably under the guidance of an inheritance law expert how the settlement of this potentially negative inheritance can best take place.