Issues related to the Inheritance rights often arise in the public. Often there are cases when the relatives of the deceased appear in confusion and uncertain situation, when they do not know who are the heirs of the deceased, in order to open the legacy, or what order they are recognized as heirs and so on.
According to Article 1184 of the RA Civil Code, by inheritance the property of the decedent (the inheritance) passes to other persons in unaltered form as a unified whole (universal legal succession), unless the rules of the Code provide otherwise. Inheritance is conducted by will and by statute.
Inheritance shall be conducted by statute when a will does not exist or does not determine the fate of all the inheritance and also in other cases provided by the Code.
An inheritance shall be opened as the result of the death of a citizen. Declaration by a court of a citizen as dead shall entail the same legal consequences as the death of a citizen.
The time of opening the inheritance is the day of death of the citizen or, in the case he is declared dead–the day of entry into legal force of a decision of a court declaring the citizen dead, unless another day is established in the decision. If, on one and the same day, persons have died who had the right to inherit one after the other, they shall be considered to have died simultaneously. The inheritance shall be opened after each of them and the heirs of each of them shall be called to the inheritance.
Pursuant to Article 1190 of the RA Civil Code, Citizens alive on the day of opening the inheritance and also those conceived during the life of the donor by inheritance and born alive after the opening of the inheritance may be heirs by will or statute. Legal persons existing on the day of the opening of the inheritance, the Republic of Armenia and communes, and also foreign states and international organizations may be heirs by will.
