Who Can Be an Heir
Intestate succession resolves who receives a deceased person's property when there is no will or the will cannot operate. The heirs may be persons who were alive at the moment of the decedent's death, and also the decedent's children who will be born alive after the death. The criterion of life is tied to the moment of death, with an exception for a child to be born, grounded in the fact of conception.
By comparison, testamentary heirs may be persons alive at the moment of death, those conceived during the decedent's lifetime and born after the death regardless of whether they are his children, and also legal entities. The intestate track is narrower — built on family connection, while the testamentary track follows the testator's will.
The First Rank: Children, Spouse and Parents
In intestate succession the first-rank heirs with equal rights are the decedent's children, including a child born after the death, the spouse and the parents (adoptive parents). This is the closest circle: children, spouse and parents are called simultaneously and stand as equals, each receiving an equal share within the rank.
Special rules concern adopted children. Adopted children and their descendants, as heirs of the adoptive parent or of his relatives, are equalized with the adoptive parent's children and their descendants. Conversely, an adopted child is no longer considered an intestate heir of his biological parents, other biological relatives of the ascending line, or sisters and brothers. The same logic operates in reverse: the adoptive parent and his relatives, as heirs of the adopted child and his descendants, are equalized with the adopted child's biological relatives, while that biological family no longer holds intestate succession rights. Adoption creates a new inheritance connection and severs the old one.
Representation by Grandchildren and the Subsequent Ranks
Grandchildren, a grandchild's children and the latter's children are intestate heirs if, at the opening of the estate, their parent — who ought to have been the decedent's heir — is no longer alive; they receive equally the share that would have fallen to that parent. If their parents refused the estate, however, grandchildren cannot become heirs: a refusal closes the door to the next generation as well.
The subsequent ranks are distributed as follows. The second rank comprises the decedent's sisters and brothers; nieces, nephews and their children are called under the same condition — the parent no longer being alive — and take equally in the parent's place. The third rank comprises the grandmother and grandfather, and the grandmother's and grandfather's parents on both the mother's and the father's side, the great-grandparents inheriting if the grandparents are no longer alive at the opening. The fourth rank comprises uncles and aunts; the fifth comprises cousins and, if these do not exist, their children.
The relation between the ranks is unambiguous: the existence of even one heir of a prior rank excludes the succession of the subsequent rank. As long as even one child is alive, sisters and brothers do not become heirs — and so on down the order.