For heirs who are still minors (including minors whose status as a minor has been extended) or heirs under administration (or provisional administration), you are required to consult your notary-public.
As an heir, you are under no obligation to accept an inheritance. There are three possibilities:
1. You accept the inheritance.
Usually, an inheritance is accepted without further consideration. ‘Outright acceptance’ of the estate means that you receive your share of the estate’s assets, but you must also pay any debts that come with the inheritance. If the debts are greater than the assets you receive, you have to repay them with your own funds.
You accept the inheritance as soon as you perform an ‘act of acceptance’. There are two ways of doing this:
- Explicit acceptance is where the heir formally assumes the capacity of heir, for instance in a deed.
- Tacit acceptance is where the heir does not formally assume the capacity of heir but engages in acts that – knowingly or unknowingly – imply an intention to accept the estate and that can only be carried out in their capacity as heir, such as making use of funds credited on an account held with KBC (or another financial institution) or taking away possessions from the deceased’s home.
Once you have accepted the inheritance, such acceptance is final. If it later transpires that the debts outweigh the assets in the estate, you can no longer renounce it.
2. Acceptance of the estate ‘under benefit of inventory’
If you have reason to believe that the deceased had more debts than assets, or have doubts as to the composition of the estate and want to protect your own assets against potential liabilities on the part of the estate, you can opt to accept ‘under benefit of inventory’, i.e. conditionally. If the debts exceed the assets left by the deceased, you will not have to pay those debts with your own funds. In that case, you simply inherit nothing.
To accept the estate ‘under benefit of inventory’, you must first submit a formal declaration to a notary public, who is then required to take an inventory of all the estate’s assets and debts. How much this costs depends on the specific situation.
3. You renounce the inheritance.
If you renounce the inheritance, you fully reject it. In this case, you have no right to the assets of the estate (held at KBC or any other financial institution) or to other items of the deceased's movable or immovable property. In exchange, you are not responsible for any outstanding debts. You should still take care that you do not carry out an act of ‘tacit acceptance’.
If you renounce the inheritance, it (or your share of it) goes to your heirs, who can choose to accept or renounce it in turn. If all the heirs renounce the inheritance, it is then up to the Belgian State to decide whether or not to accept it.
If you choose to renounce the inheritance, you need to file a declaration with a notary public. Depending on the situation, this may also incur a fee.