Succession Law & Estate Planning

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Introduction – The Fragility of Continuity

Succession law legislates at the threshold of absence. It speaks when the individual voice has fallen silent, arranging property, responsibility, and memory. Yet it is never only technical. To inherit is to negotiate with the past: to decide what is owed, to whom, and under which cultural and legal script.

Civil law traditions emphasise solidarity through compulsory shares; common law traditions celebrate freedom through testamentary autonomy; Islamic systems proclaim immutable Qur’anic shares. But these labels conceal nuance. Civil law increasingly opens to autonomy; common law corrects freedom with duties of care; Islamic jurisdictions show pluralism in practice. Succession law is therefore less a set of absolutes than a constellation of paradoxes.

Estate planning is where law meets imagination: wills, foundations, trusts, donations, and new devices like digital vaults and ecological trusts. It is also where law collides with taxation, cultural heritage, and human rights. Each system reveals a philosophy of continuity, but never in pure form.

It is in this layered landscape that Peeters Law, through its penteract model, offers guidance. Clients face not a single order, but multiple dimensions: territorial jurisdiction (2D), substantive patrimonial law (3D), cultural and linguistic nuance (4D), doctrinal foundations (5D), and corrective oversight where law falters (6D).




I. Inheritance as Memory and Obligation

Inheritance is law’s way of remembering.

The Napoleonic legacy enshrined compulsory shares as expressions of family solidarity.^1 Belgium, France, Spain, and Italy embedded the réserve héréditaire into their codes. Germany developed the Pflichtteil, a monetary claim rather than co-ownership.^2 Switzerland’s 2023 reform reduced compulsory shares, marking a shift toward autonomy.^3 Belgium’s 2018 reform likewise lowered the children’s reserve to half, abolished the parental reserve, and introduced enforceable succession agreements.^4

Yet even within civil law, nuance abounds. French doctrine emphasises solidarity as constitutional principle; Belgian reformers defended greater autonomy while preserving family balance; Spanish foral systems (Catalonia, Navarra) diverge from the national code.^5

Common law traditions valorise freedom, but not absolutely. England and Wales allow wills to disinherit, but the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 empowers courts to reinsert solidarity.^6 Similar statutes exist in Australia and New Zealand.^7 Scotland, though within the UK, preserves “legal rights” for heirs, reflecting hybrid civil law influence.^8

Latin America enforces the legítima as public order. Andrés Bello’s Chilean Civil Code (1855) inspired Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico.^9 Yet practice shows flexibility: informal transfers, offshore structures, and litigation reveal negotiation beneath rigidity.

Islamic systems prescribe Qur’anic shares as divine mandate.^10 Still, reforms in Morocco and Tunisia address gender equality,^11 Indonesia allows customary adat law to coexist,^12 and Egypt debates interpretation in constitutional light.^13

Succession law thus reflects not uniform systems but overlapping tendencies: solidarity and autonomy, tradition and reform, obligation and choice.




II. Temporalities of Succession

Succession also organises time.

Compulsory shares anchor the present in the past: wealth transmits because family ties cannot be severed. Trusts and foundations extend ownership forward, projecting continuity beyond death. Planning tools are therefore temporal devices: they decide whether patrimony binds backward, extends forward, or both.

Digital inheritance destabilises these timelines. Cryptographic assets, social media archives, and cloud storage defy traditional categories. France has legislated on digital succession rights,^14 while other states rely on contract and private terms of service. The temporality of succession law is no longer linear: property and memory extend into intangible futures, raising questions of access, privacy, and decay.




III. Geographies of Belonging

Which law speaks for the dead?

The EU Succession Regulation (650/2012) anchors jurisdiction in habitual residence (Art 4) and applicable law likewise (Art 21).^15 A professio juris allows choice of nationality law (Art 22).^16 The CJEU in Kubicka and Oberle highlighted predictability but also tension: residence as lived fact, nationality as identity.^17

Common law retains domicile as key connector, though notoriously complex.^18 Civil law historically distinguished between movables (domicile) and immovables (lex situs).^19 Nationality-based systems (e.g. Germany, Switzerland) shifted under EU influence or reform.^20

Pluralist jurisdictions show layered belonging: India applies Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Parsi succession laws in parallel;^21 Nigeria overlays customary, Islamic, and statutory rules;^22 South Africa blends Roman-Dutch heritage with constitutional scrutiny.^23

Belonging in succession is therefore never singular. It is an unstable balance of residence, nationality, domicile, faith, and community.




IV. Recognition as Hospitality

Recognition of foreign wills and judgments is not only technical. It expresses how one legal order receives another’s way of grieving.

The Succession Regulation ensures mutual recognition of decisions, authentic instruments, and settlements (Arts 39–44), and created the European Certificate of Succession (Arts 62–73).^24 The CJEU stressed mutual trust as cornerstone in Gazprom.^25

Beyond Europe, the 1961 Hague Convention on Wills harmonises formal validity; the 1985 Trusts Convention enables recognition of trusts; the 2019 Judgments Convention sketches global standards.^26

Elsewhere, practice diverges: the US applies comity, often requiring ancillary probate;^27 Latin America uses exequatur;^28 Islamic states may deny recognition where outcomes contradict Qur’anic shares;^29 microstates (Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein) adopt pragmatic solutions.^30

Recognition thus reveals both openness and limits. It is legal hospitality, but never unconditional.




V. Estate Planning as Architecture

Planning is law’s architecture of continuity.

Civil law permits planning but within forced heirship: testamentary freedom is bounded, yet matrimonial agreements, gifts, and family foundations expand possibilities.^31 Belgian reforms introduced binding succession agreements, reflecting pragmatism in blended families.^32

Common law trusts allow property to outlive its owner. Yet their recognition abroad is uneven, particularly in civil law states.^33

Latin America enforces claw-back to protect heirs, but estate planning adapts via corporate structures, cross-border vehicles, and donations.

Islamic systems limit wills to one-third of the estate;^34 yet waqf foundations, donations inter vivos, and hybrid forms create planning strategies.

Modern estate planning adds philanthropy, ecological trusts, digital vaults, and family offices. The field is thus no longer merely patrimonial but cultural, social, and ecological.




VI. Taxation and Double Taxation

Inheritance taxation reflects society’s philosophy of equality and solidarity.

Belgium levies regional inheritance taxes; Flanders exempts family businesses under conditions of continuity.^35 France applies progressive taxes, with mechanisms like dation en paiement (art as tax payment).^36 Spain is fragmented: Madrid applies minimal rates, Catalonia significant ones.^37 Germany privileges enterprises;^38 Switzerland leaves competence to cantons, some exempting descendants.^39

The UK imposes inheritance tax at 40% above a nil-rate band, with exemptions for spouses and charities.^40 The US levies federal estate tax, plus state-level duties.^41 Japan’s rates are among the world’s highest;^42 China and India impose none.

Double taxation remains acute. Treaties exist — e.g. France–US,^43 Belgium–France,^44 UK–Ireland,^45 US–Germany,^46 Switzerland–UK^47 — but remain exceptional. The CJEU condemned discriminatory taxation in Mattner^48 and Commission v Spain.^49 OECD has model clauses, but uptake is weak.^50

Taxation is thus both redistribution and deterrence: society’s own inheritance, claimed in the name of justice.




VII. Equality at the Threshold

Succession law once entrenched inequality: illegitimate children, daughters, minorities were excluded. Courts and legislatures gradually reformed.

The ECHR condemned discrimination in Marckx v Belgium,^51 Mazurek v France,^52 Fabris v France,^53 and Pla & Puncernau v Andorra.^54 National reforms followed: Belgium equalised heirs,^55 Spain abolished distinctions,^56 South Africa extended equality in customary law,^57 India reformed Hindu succession in 2005,^58 Colombia recognised indigenous rights.^59

Succession thus remains a site of human rights oversight, where tradition and dignity meet in conflict and reform.




VIII. Emerging Horizons

Succession law now faces new frontiers:

Digital inheritance: crypto-assets, NFTs, online accounts. France and Germany legislate access rights; most rely on contract law.^60

Cultural heritage: Belgium’s Topstukkendecreet,^61 France’s pre-emption rights,^62 Spain’s export restrictions.^63

Ecological succession: forests, carbon rights, ecological trusts in common law.

Family businesses: preferential tax regimes in Belgium, Germany, France.

Philanthropy: testamentary giving shapes universities, museums, NGOs.

Migration and expats: EU expats in Spain, Colombian migrants in Europe, cross-border inheritance disputes.


Succession thus expands beyond patrimony into culture, environment, and identity.




IX. Peeters Law and the Penteract

In this landscape, Peeters Law acts not as lecturer but as navigator.

The penteract model frames each case within five (sometimes six) dimensions:

2D – territorial: jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition.

3D – substantive: inheritance, matrimonial property, taxation.

4D – language and culture: semantics, translation, cultural nuance.

5D – doctrine: academic structuring and scholarly guidance.

6D – corrective: constitutional or human rights review.


What Peeters Law does in practice:

Guides Belgian and Spanish families through EU Regulation 650/2012, clarifying professio juris and recognition.

Designs succession planning for expats in Spain, reconciling Belgian reforms with Spanish legítima.

Coordinates inheritance tax optimisation, leveraging family business exemptions in Flanders and regional diversity in Spain.

Advises on succession of art collections under cultural heritage laws (Belgium’s Topstukkendecreet, Spain’s Ley de Patrimonio Histórico).

Structures philanthropic and ecological succession tools: foundations, donations, testamentary gifts.

Litigates before Belgian and EU courts on recognition, applicable law, and equality of heirs.


This is succession law as more than property division: it is continuity as architecture.




Conclusion – To Inherit Is to Interpret

Inheritance is never absolute. It is solidarity and autonomy, memory and transformation, privilege and equality.

Law does not resolve these paradoxes. It preserves them, offering frameworks through which societies and families negotiate meaning. To inherit is to interpret: to decide, in each context, what continuity should look like.

Peeters Law positions itself precisely here: not as arbiter of certainty, but as architect of orientation, ensuring that succession — whether of property, memory, or culture — is not accident, but structure.

For full bibliographical references to the cited works, please contact Peeters Law.