The heir has the option to sell their inheritance rights to a third party before accepting, renouncing, or accepting the inheritance with inventory.

Author: Lidia Orellana

Source: tododisca.com

Inheritance includes all the assets, rights, and obligations of a person that do not expire upon their death. This means that, in addition to assets or titles, heirs may also be responsible for debts or other detrimental obligations. It is important to remember that heirs are those who succeed the deceased, simply by virtue of their death, inheriting all their rights and obligations.

You may not know, but when someone passes away, the heir has three options: to renounce the inheritance, thus giving up all assets, rights, and obligations; to accept it, with all its consequences; or a middle option: to accept with inventory, meaning the heir will accept their share of the inheritance provided that the assets exceed the liabilities.

There is a fourth option that the heir can take before accepting, renouncing, or accepting with inventory. This option is to sell their inheritance rights. In doing so, the heir transfers everything they would be entitled to, even before any inheritance procedures have been carried out. Once sold, it will be the third party who will step in and accept everything they are entitled to under the will or by law.

How to Sell Inheritance Rights Before Receiving Them

When you sell your inheritance rights, you are transferring everything you would be entitled to after accepting and partitioning the inheritance. It is important to note that while you are selling the right itself, you are not selling the status of heir, which remains with the appropriate person even without this right. Another key point is that these rights can only be sold after the death of the decedent; they cannot be sold before this event.

So, how can you sell your inheritance rights before receiving them? Only two requirements need to be met. As mentioned, the decedent must have passed away. Secondly, the inheritance must not have been accepted yet, because once accepted, you can sell the assets assigned to you but not the inheritance right itself.

Once these two requirements are met, you should visit a notary and transfer your inheritance right to the interested buyer. From this point on, even though you retain the status of heir, you will not play a significant role in the process. This means that for all subsequent actions related to the inheritance (partition, acceptance, etc.), it will be the buyer of your right who must step in and carry out the procedures.

It is worth noting that when an heir wishes to sell their inheritance right, the other heirs have a right of first refusal. This means that even if the seller has a buyer, another heir has the preference to purchase the right. This is stipulated by Article 1.067 of the Civil Code.