The issues that may arise as a result of a succession, be it testamentary or legitimate, are many and not easy to analyze, considering the internal and external factors that can influence them.
The Vaiana law firm has always dealt with in-depth analysis for its customers and clients in Naples (but not only in Naples) in this field too, analyzing all the alternative paths to the endless legal disputes that arise in the event that there is an inheritance to be assigned.

The inheritance rights

The matter of inheritance rights is very complex because the variables and the applicative hypotheses deriving from a will or a legitimate succession are infinite. It is sufficient to think of transnational succession where, in order to identify the applicable conflict law, the judge must use the canons proper to the Italian legal system, to which this law belongs.

The Italian law n. 218 dated 31 May 1995, which regulates transnational succession, subjects movable property to the law of the domicile of the deceased and refers back to Italian law, while for the regulation of immovable property included in the inheritance, the opening of two succession and the formation of two distinct masses, each subject to different rules of vocation and of informing.
This implies the presence of various laws that verify the validity and effectiveness of the title of succession (also, in this case, with regard to the conditions, causes, methods and effects of the revocation of the will), identify the heirs, determine the amount of the shares and the methods of acceptance and publicity and prepare the possible protection of the right holders.

Life insurance successions

Then there is the often recurring question of the life insurance contract, where the designated beneficiary buys, pursuant to art. 1920 of the Italian Civil Code, paragraph 3, a "proper right" to the advantages of the insurance of a contractual nature, which does not become part of the inheritance of the policyholder.
However, in these cases it is debated whether the designation of third-party beneficiaries, by means of the reference to legitimate heirs or testamentary heirs, serves to subject the contractual relationship to the code of law on succession matters.

In this regard, there was a conflict within the jurisprudence of legitimacy, so much so that the Sec. III of the Supreme Court referred to the First President, for the evaluation of the possible assignment to the United Sections of the Supreme Court, the following issues, subject to conflict in the jurisprudence of legitimacy:

• if in the matter of life insurance in favor of a third party, in the presence of the widespread contractual formula, also present in the contract in question and generically referred to the "legitimate heirs", said expression is merely descriptive of those who, in the abstract, cover the quality of legitimate heirs or whether it should be understood, instead, that it refers to the subjects actually recipients of the inheritance;
• whether the designation of the heirs in the will could interfere, in the settlement of compensation, with the abstract identification of the legitimate heirs;
• if, in this second case, the indemnity benefit must reflect the extent of the inheritance shares due by law or if the nature of "proper law" enshrined in the law (see art. 1920 cc, uc) requires a division of the total compensation between the entitled parties in equal parts.