In practice, quite often there are cases when, for one reason or another, the heirs miss the specified six-month period for accepting the inheritance.
At the suit of the heir who missed the deadline for accepting the inheritance for a good reason, the court may determine an additional period for him, sufficient for him to submit an application for accepting the inheritance.
An heir who has missed the deadline for accepting the inheritance may have an additional deadline:
- with the written consent of other heirs who have accepted the inheritance;
- By the tribunal’s decision.
In accordance with the provisions of Part 3 of Art. 1272 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, at the suit of the heir who missed the deadline for accepting the inheritance for a good reason, the court may determine him an additional period sufficient for him to submit an application for accepting the inheritance.
The defendants in cases on determining an additional period for filing an application for acceptance of an inheritance are the heirs who have accepted the inheritance. In the absence of other heirs by will and by law, their elimination from the right to inheritance, their refusal to accept the inheritance, as well as refusal to accept it, the defendants are the territorial communities represented by the relevant local government bodies at the place of opening of the inheritance.
The rights of the heir who missed the deadline for accepting the inheritance will be protected by the court if:
1) the heir had obstacles to submitting an application for acceptance of the inheritance within 6 months;
2) these circumstances are recognized by the court as valid.
The current legislation of Ukraine does not contain a definition of the concept of «valid reasons» and does not establish a list of such reasons. In order to determine what reasons for missing the deadline for accepting the inheritance can be considered valid, one should refer to judicial practice.
The Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in paragraph 24 of the resolution of May 30, 2008 No. 7 «On judicial practice in inheritance cases» explained that, when deciding the issue of determining an additional term for a person, the court examines the validity of the reason for missing the term for accepting the inheritance. In this case, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that there are valid reasons associated with objective, insurmountable, significant difficulties for the heir to perform these actions.
Based on the results of the analysis of the practice of the Armed Forces, we can give an approximate list of valid reasons for missing the deadline for accepting the inheritance:
— long-term illness of the heir;
— a large distance between the place of permanent residence of the heir and the location of the inherited property;
— difficult working conditions, which, in particular, associated with a long business trip, including foreign;
— stay of the heir in the military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine;
— ignorance of the heir about the presence of a will and the like.
At the same time, the following are recognized as valid reasons for missing the deadline:
— legal ignorance of the heir about the time and procedure for accepting the inheritance;
— ignorance of the heir about the death of the testator and the presence of hereditary property;
— old age and incapacity for work of the heir;
— stay of the heir abroad
— lack of funds for travel to the place of opening the inheritance;
— unfavorable weather conditions and the like.
I note that a prerequisite for satisfying the claim is proof of the fact that the existing obstacles to filing an application for accepting the inheritance created objective, insurmountable, significant difficulties for the heir to timely accept the inheritance.
It is worth saying that the procedure for accepting an inheritance under Ukrainian legislation is quite simple and does not require special preparation from the heirs, collection of documents, and the like. However, the litigation to determine the additional term for accepting the inheritance is rather difficult, the positive decision of the court depends on a number of factors: the availability of sufficient evidence, the plaintiff’s convincing of his position, the approach of the judge, and the like.
Thus, heirs should be attentive to the statutory deadline for accepting an inheritance and, if necessary, seek an explanation of the acceptance of an inheritance from a lawyer.
