The Directorate General for Legal Certainty and Public Faith has ruled that the registration of a deed for a legacy succession agreement with current transfer must not be conditional upon the registry recording the impact on forced heirship (Art. 15 of the Mortgage Law). It is established that the mere attribution of an asset through a legacy or donation does not make the beneficiary an heir or universal successor, meaning they are under no obligation to satisfy any forced heirship claims. The resolution clarifies that the historical connection between Balearic and Catalan Law does not mandate the registration of forced heirship when the acquirer is a contractual legatee rather than an heir.
For contractual legatees in the Balearic Islands (Ibiza and Formentera), this facilitates the registration of assets without imposing the burden of proving the satisfaction of other heirs' forced heirship claims, as they do not hold the status of universal successors. For Land Registrars, the ruling delimits the scope of Article 15 of the Mortgage Law, preventing the requirement for forced heirship evidence in transfers that do not involve universal succession. Heirs retain their legal actions for undue legacies against legatees, but these do not affect the registration of the asset (Facts I).
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