¹ On the death of the de­ceased, the es­tate in its en­tirety vests by op­er­a­tion of law in the heirs.

² Sub­ject to the stat­utory ex­cep­tions, the de­ceased’s claims, rights of own­er­ship, lim­ited rights in rem and rights of pos­ses­sion auto­mat­ic­ally pass to the heirs and the debts of the de­ceased be­come the per­son­al debts of the heirs.

³ Vest­ing in the named heirs takes ef­fect ret­ro­act­ively from the date on which the suc­ces­sion pro­cess com­menced and the stat­utory heirs must re­lin­quish the es­tate to them ac­cord­ing to the rules gov­ern­ing pos­ses­sion.

¹ The leg­atees have a per­son­al claim against the ob­lig­ors of their legacies or, where no-one is spe­cific­ally named as such, against the leg­al or named heirs.

² Un­less oth­er­wise provided by dis­pos­i­tion mor­tis causa, the claim be­comes due once the ob­lig­or has ac­cep­ted the in­her­it­ance or is no longer able to dis­claim it.

³ If the heirs fail to ful­fil their ob­lig­a­tion, they may be sued for re­lease of the be­queathed prop­erty or, where the leg­acy per­tains to per­form­ance of some ac­tion, for dam­ages.

¹ Where the be­quest to the leg­atee is a usu­fruct or an­nu­ity or oth­er re­cur­ring be­ne­fit, un­less oth­er­wise stip­u­lated, his or her claim is de­term­ined ac­cord­ing to the pro­vi­sions of prop­erty law and the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions.

² If the leg­acy is a life as­sur­ance claim matur­ing on the death of the test­at­or, the leg­atee is en­titled to as­sert that claim dir­ectly.

¹ The claims of the test­at­or’s cred­it­ors pre­cede those of leg­atees.

² The claims of the heir’s cred­it­ors rank equally with those of the test­at­or’s cred­it­ors, provided the heir ac­quired the in­her­it­ance without re­ser­va­tion.

¹ If, after the legacies have been dis­trib­uted, the heirs pay debts of the es­tate that were pre­vi­ously un­known to them, they are en­titled to re­im­burse­ment from the leg­atees of an amount cor­res­pond­ing to the pro­por­tion­ate abate­ment of such legacies that the heirs could have claimed.

² However, the leg­atees may be held li­able only in the amount by which they are en­riched at the time such re­im­burse­ment is de­man­ded.

¹ The leg­al and named heirs are en­titled to dis­claim the in­her­it­ance passing to them.

² There is a pre­sump­tion of a dis­claim­er if at the time of his or her death the de­ceased had been of­fi­cially de­clared in­solv­ent or was mani­festly in­solv­ent.

¹ The time lim­it for a dis­claim­er is three months.

² For stat­utory heirs, this lim­it be­gins on the date on which they learned of the death, un­less they can show that they did not learn of their suc­ces­sion rights un­til later, and for named heirs it be­gins on the date on which they re­ceived of­fi­cial no­ti­fic­a­tion of the test­at­or’s dis­pos­i­tion.

If an in­vent­ory has been drawn up as a pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ure, the dis­claim­er time lim­it for all heirs be­gins on the date on which the au­thor­ity no­ti­fied them that the in­vent­ory was com­plete.

¹ If an heir dies be­fore dis­claim­ing or ac­cept­ing an in­her­it­ance, the right to dis­claim passes to his or her heirs.

² For such heirs, the dis­claim­er time lim­it be­gins on the date on which they learned that the in­her­it­ance passed to the de­ceased heir and ends no soon­er than the date on which the time lim­it for dis­claim­ing the in­her­it­ance from the de­ceased heir ex­pires.

³ Where such heirs dis­claim the in­her­it­ance and it passes to oth­er heirs who pre­vi­ously had no suc­ces­sion rights, the dis­claim­er time lim­it for the lat­ter be­gins on the date on which they learned of the dis­claim­er.

¹ An heir must de­clare his or her dis­claim­er or­ally or in writ­ing to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity.

² It must be un­con­di­tion­al and without re­ser­va­tion.

³ The au­thor­ity keeps an of­fi­cial re­cord of dis­claim­ers.

¹ If the heir fails to de­clare that he or she dis­claims the in­her­it­ance with­in the rel­ev­ant time lim­it, he or she ac­quires it without re­ser­va­tion.

² Where an heir has in­terfered in the af­fairs of the es­tate be­fore ex­piry of the dis­claim­er time lim­it or has ac­ted in a man­ner not con­du­cive to ad­min­is­ter­ing the es­tate or main­tain­ing the de­ceased’s busi­ness activ­it­ies, or where he or she has ap­pro­pri­ated or con­cealed ob­jects be­long­ing to the es­tate, he or she is no longer en­titled to dis­claim the in­her­it­ance.

¹ Where the de­ceased has not made a dis­pos­i­tion mor­tis causa and one of two or more heirs dis­claims the in­her­it­ance, his or her share of the es­tate passes to the oth­er heirs as if he or she had pre­de­ceased.

² Where the de­ceased has made dis­pos­i­tion mor­tis causa, any share of the es­tate dis­claimed by a named heir passes to the test­at­or’s nearest stat­utory heirs, un­less oth­er in­ten­tions on the part of the test­at­or are evid­ent from the dis­pos­i­tion.

¹ Where the in­her­it­ance is dis­claimed by all the nearest heirs, the es­tate is li­quid­ated by the bank­ruptcy of­fice.

² If li­quid­a­tion pro­duces a sur­plus after pay­ment of debts, this passes to those en­titled to in­her­it as if they had not dis­claimed it.

If the de­ceased’s is­sue have dis­claimed the in­her­it­ance, the au­thor­ity no­ti­fies the dis­claim­er to the sur­viv­ing spouse, who is en­titled to de­clare ac­cept­ance with­in one month.

¹ When dis­claim­ing the in­her­it­ance, the heirs may re­quest that it be offered to their sub­sequent heirs be­fore the es­tate is li­quid­ated.

² In this event, the au­thor­ity in­forms the sub­sequent heirs that the pre­ced­ing heirs have dis­claimed, and if the former fail to de­clare their ac­cept­ance of the in­her­it­ance with­in one month, they are like­wise deemed to have dis­claimed it.

Where there is good cause, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may grant the leg­al and named heirs an ex­ten­sion of the time lim­it or set a new one.

Where a leg­atee dis­claims a leg­acy, it be­comes void in fa­vour of the ob­lig­or, un­less oth­er in­ten­tions on the part of the test­at­or are evid­ent from his or her dis­pos­i­tion.

¹ Where an over­indebted heir has dis­claimed an in­her­it­ance in or­der to with­hold it from his or her cred­it­ors, the lat­ter or the bank­ruptcy ad­min­is­trat­ors may chal­lenge the dis­claim­er with­in six months un­less their claims are se­cured.

² If their chal­lenge is up­held, the in­her­it­ance is placed in of­fi­cial li­quid­a­tion.

³ Any sur­plus serves first to sat­is­fy the chal­len­ging cred­it­ors and any bal­ance re­main­ing after re­demp­tion of the oth­er debts passes to the heirs in whose fa­vour the dis­claim­er was made.

¹ Where the de­ceased was in­solv­ent and his or her heirs dis­claim the in­her­it­ance, they re­main li­able to his or her cred­it­ors to the ex­tent that in the five years pri­or to his or her death they re­ceived prop­erty or as­sets from him or her which on di­vi­sion of the es­tate would have been sub­ject to hotch­pot.

² The en­dow­ment of newly-weds ac­cord­ing to loc­al cus­tom and the costs of rais­ing and edu­cat­ing chil­dren are not af­fected by such li­ab­il­ity.

³ Heirs act­ing in good faith are li­able only to the ex­tent they are still en­riched.

¹ Any heir en­titled to dis­claim his or her in­her­it­ance has the right to re­quest a pub­lic in­vent­ory.

² The re­quest must be made to the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity with­in one month in the same form as the dis­claim­er.

³ A re­quest made by one heir is also val­id for the oth­ers.

¹ The pub­lic in­vent­ory is drawn up by the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of can­ton­al law and con­sists of a list of all the as­sets and debts of the es­tate, to­geth­er with an ap­prais­al of the value of each item in the in­vent­ory.

² Any per­son able to provide in­form­a­tion on the fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances of the de­ceased is per­son­ally ob­liged to give the au­thor­ity all the in­form­a­tion it re­quires.

³ In par­tic­u­lar, the heirs must in­form the au­thor­ity of any debts of the de­ceased that are known to them.

¹ In the course of draw­ing up the in­vent­ory, the au­thor­ity shall make a form­al call to ac­count whereby ap­pro­pri­ate pub­lic no­tices are is­sued call­ing on all cred­it­ors and debt­ors of the de­ceased, in­clud­ing cred­it­ors un­der a surety, to come for­ward and re­gister their claims and debts with­in a spe­cified time lim­it.

² Such no­tices must alert the cred­it­ors to the con­sequences of any fail­ure to re­gister.

³ The time lim­it for re­gis­ter­ing must not be earli­er than one month from the date of the first pub­lic no­tice.

¹ Claims and debts evid­ent from the pub­lic re­gisters or from the pa­pers of the de­ceased are in­cluded ex of­fi­cio.

² The debt­ors and cred­it­ors must be no­ti­fied of any such in­clu­sion.

¹ On ex­piry of the pub­lished time lim­it, the in­vent­ory is closed and made avail­able for per­us­al by all in­ter­ested parties for at least one month.

² The costs are borne by the es­tate and, where this is in­suf­fi­cient, by the heirs who re­ques­ted the in­vent­ory.

¹ While the in­vent­ory is be­ing drawn up, only the ne­ces­sary ad­min­is­trat­ive ac­tions may be taken.

² Where the au­thor­ity au­thor­ises an heir to con­tin­ue the de­ceased’s busi­ness activ­it­ies, the co-heirs may re­quest that se­cur­ity be fur­nished.

¹ While the in­vent­ory is be­ing drawn up, no ac­tion may be taken to en­force the debts of the de­ceased.

² ...⁵⁴²

³ Ex­cept in ur­gent mat­ters, court pro­ceed­ings may neither be com­menced nor con­tin­ued.

¹ Once the in­vent­ory is closed, all the heirs are re­ques­ted to de­clare with­in one month their in­ten­tions with re­gard to ac­quir­ing the in­her­it­ance due to them.

² Where jus­ti­fied in the cir­cum­stances, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may set a fur­ther time lim­it for ob­tain­ing ap­prais­als, set­tling dis­puted claims and the like.

¹ Dur­ing the set time lim­it, an heir may dis­claim his or her in­her­it­ance or re­quest of­fi­cial li­quid­a­tion or ac­cept the in­her­it­ance either sub­ject to pub­lic in­vent­ory or without re­ser­va­tion.

² Where an heir makes no de­clar­a­tion, he or she is deemed to have ac­cep­ted the in­her­it­ance sub­ject to pub­lic in­vent­ory.

¹ Where an heir ac­cepts the in­her­it­ance sub­ject to pub­lic in­vent­ory, the debts of the de­ceased lis­ted in the in­vent­ory and the as­sets pass to him or her.

² The ac­quis­i­tion of the in­her­it­ance with all at­tend­ant rights and ob­lig­a­tions takes ef­fect ret­ro­act­ively from the date on which the suc­ces­sion pro­cess com­menced.

³ The heir is li­able for debts lis­ted in the in­vent­ory both with the in­her­it­ance and with his or her own as­sets.

¹ The heirs are not li­able either per­son­ally or with the in­her­it­ance to­wards cred­it­ors of the es­tate whose claims were not in­cluded in the in­vent­ory be­cause the cred­it­ors failed to re­gister them in time.

² Where such fail­ure to re­gister claims in the in­vent­ory was through no fault of the cred­it­or or his or her claims were not in­cluded in the in­vent­ory des­pite hav­ing been re­gistered, the heir is li­able to the ex­tent he or she is en­riched by the in­her­it­ance.

³ In all cases, cred­it­ors may as­sert claims to the ex­tent these are se­cured by a li­en on the es­tate as­sets.

Any debts un­der a surety giv­en by the de­ceased are lis­ted sep­ar­ately in the in­vent­ory and may be as­ser­ted against an heir, even where he or she ac­cepts the in­her­it­ance, only in the amount that would be al­loc­ated to the surety debt if all debts of the es­tate were to be re­deemed un­der the rules gov­ern­ing bank­ruptcy.

Where an es­tate passes to a state au­thor­ity, a form­al call to ac­count is made ex of­fi­cio and the state au­thor­ity is li­able for the debts of the es­tate only in the amount of the as­sets it has in­her­ited from the es­tate.

¹ Rather than dis­claim the in­her­it­ance or ac­cept it sub­ject to pub­lic in­vent­ory, each heir is en­titled to re­quest of­fi­cial li­quid­a­tion.

² However, such re­quest may not be gran­ted if at least one co-heir ac­cepts the in­her­it­ance.

³ In the event of of­fi­cial li­quid­a­tion, the heirs are not li­able for the debts of the es­tate.

¹ Where the de­ceased’s cred­it­ors have good cause to fear that their claims will not be met and such claims are not sat­is­fied or se­cured at their re­quest, with­in three months of the death of the de­ceased or the read­ing of the will they may de­mand the of­fi­cial li­quid­a­tion of the es­tate.

² Sub­ject to the same con­di­tions, leg­atees may re­quest pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures by way of se­cur­ity.

¹ The of­fi­cial li­quid­a­tion is car­ried out by the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity or by one or more es­tate ad­min­is­trat­ors act­ing at the au­thor­ity’s be­hest.

² It be­gins with the tak­ing of an in­vent­ory and the at­tend­ant form­al call to ac­count.

³ The es­tate ad­min­is­trat­or is un­der the au­thor­ity’s su­per­vi­sion and the heirs may ap­peal to the au­thor­ity against any meas­ures taken or planned by the ad­min­is­trat­or.

¹ For the pur­pose of li­quid­a­tion, any busi­ness activ­it­ies of the de­ceased still in op­er­a­tion are brought to a close, his or her ob­lig­a­tions are per­formed, his or her claims are called in, his or her legacies are dis­trib­uted where pos­sible, his or her rights and du­ties are de­term­ined at law, where ne­ces­sary, and his or her as­sets are con­ver­ted in­to cash.

² Land formerly be­long­ing to the de­ceased is sold at pub­lic auc­tion; it may be dis­posed of by private sale only with the con­sent of all the heirs.

³ The heirs are en­titled even dur­ing the li­quid­a­tion pro­cess to re­quest that some or all of the ob­jects and mon­ies that are not re­quired for the li­quid­a­tion be re­leased in­to their pos­ses­sion.

If the es­tate is over­indebted, its li­quid­a­tion is car­ried out by the bank­ruptcy of­fice in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing bank­ruptcy.

¹ A per­son who be­lieves that, as a leg­al or named heir, he or she has a bet­ter claim than the cur­rent pos­sessor to an es­tate or a part there­of may as­sert his or her claim by bring­ing an ac­tion for re­cov­ery of in­her­it­ance.

² ...⁵⁴³

¹ If the claim is up­held, the pos­sessor must re­lin­quish the es­tate or the part there­of to the claimant in ac­cord­ance with the rules gov­ern­ing pos­ses­sion.

² The de­fend­ant can­not in­voke ad­verse pos­ses­sion in re­spect of prop­erty be­long­ing to the es­tate.

¹ The right to bring an ac­tion for re­cov­ery of in­her­it­ance against a de­fend­ant act­ing in good faith pre­scribes one year after the date on which the claimant learned that the prop­erty was pos­sessed by the de­fend­ant and that he or she has a bet­ter claim to it, but in all cases ten years after the death of the de­ceased or the date on which the will was read.

² The pre­script­ive peri­od for the right to bring an ac­tion against a de­fend­ant act­ing in bad faith is al­ways 30 years.

The right of a leg­atee to bring an ac­tion pre­scribes ten years after no­ti­fic­a­tion of the dis­pos­i­tion mor­tis causa or from the sub­sequent date on which the leg­acy be­came due.

¹ Where sev­er­al heirs in­her­it the es­tate, on suc­ces­sion and un­til such time as it is di­vided they form a com­munity in re­spect of all rights and ob­lig­a­tions of the es­tate.

² They be­come joint own­ers of the prop­erty be­long­ing to the es­tate and have joint power of dis­pos­al over the rights of the es­tate, sub­ject to con­trac­tu­al or stat­utory powers of rep­res­ent­a­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion.

³ At the re­quest of one co-heir, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may ap­point a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the com­munity of heirs un­til the es­tate is di­vided.

¹ The heirs are jointly and sev­er­ally li­able for the debts of the de­ceased.

² The ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion due to chil­dren or grand­chil­dren for con­tri­bu­tions made to the house­hold they shared with the de­ceased must be ad­ded to the debts of the es­tate un­less this would render the es­tate over­indebted.⁵⁴⁴

¹ Any heir may at any time re­quest that the es­tate be di­vided un­less he or she is un­der a con­trac­tu­al or stat­utory ob­lig­a­tion to re­main a mem­ber of the com­munity of heirs.

² On ap­plic­a­tion by an heir, the court may or­der a tem­por­ary de­fer­ral of the di­vi­sion of the es­tate or spe­cif­ic parts there­of where im­me­di­ate di­vi­sion would sub­stan­tially im­pair their value.

³ Where one heir is in­solv­ent, his or her co-heirs may ap­ply for pro­vi­sion­al meas­ures to se­cure their own claims im­me­di­ately upon suc­ces­sion.

¹ If on suc­ces­sion the rights of an un­born child need to be taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, the di­vi­sion of the es­tate must be de­ferred un­til the child is born.

² In the in­ter­im, the child’s moth­er is en­titled to en­joy the be­ne­fits of the joint es­tate to the ex­tent re­quired for her main­ten­ance.

Heirs who were mem­bers of the house­hold of and main­tained by the de­ceased at the time of his or her death may de­mand that they be main­tained for a fur­ther month at the es­tate’s ex­pense.

¹ Stat­utory heirs must di­vide the es­tate among them­selves and with the named heirs ac­cord­ing to the same prin­ciples.

² Ex­cept where provided oth­er­wise, they are free to de­cide on the meth­od of di­vi­sion.

³ Co-heirs in pos­ses­sion of es­tate prop­erty or in debt to the de­ceased must provide pre­cise in­form­a­tion re­gard­ing such cir­cum­stances pri­or to the di­vi­sion.

¹ The test­at­or is en­titled by means of dis­pos­i­tion mor­tis causa to give his or her heirs in­struc­tions con­cern­ing the di­vi­sion and the form­a­tion of por­tions.

² Such in­struc­tions are bind­ing on the heirs, sub­ject to meas­ures to bal­ance out the por­tions in the event of an in­equal­ity not in­ten­ded by the test­at­or.

³ Un­less oth­er in­ten­tions on the part of the test­at­or are evid­ent from his or her dis­pos­i­tion, any be­quest of a giv­en part of the es­tate to one par­tic­u­lar heir is deemed to be merely an in­struc­tion con­cern­ing the di­vi­sion rather than a spe­cif­ic leg­acy.

¹ At the re­quest of a cred­it­or who has ac­quired or dis­trained an in­her­it­ance that has passed to an heir or who holds un­paid debt cer­ti­fic­ates against him or her, the au­thor­it­ies must as­sist in the di­vi­sion in place of that heir.

² Can­ton­al law may provide for of­fi­cial in­ter­ven­tion in the di­vi­sion pro­cess in oth­er cases.

¹ Ex­cept where oth­er pro­vi­sions ap­ply, all heirs have an equal right to the es­tate prop­erty.

² They must dis­close to each oth­er all cir­cum­stances con­cern­ing their re­la­tion­ship with the de­ceased in­so­far as these per­tain to the just and equit­able di­vi­sion of the es­tate.

³ Each heir may re­quest that the debts of the de­ceased be re­deemed or se­cured pri­or to di­vi­sion of the es­tate.

¹ The heirs form as many por­tions or lots as there are heirs or stirpes.

² If they are un­able to reach agree­ment, at the re­quest of one heir the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity must form the lots with due re­gard to loc­al cus­tom and the per­son­al cir­cum­stances and wishes of the ma­jor­ity of the co-heirs.

³ The lots are dis­trib­uted among the heirs either as agreed or by the draw­ing of lots.

¹ Where the value of an ob­ject be­long­ing to the es­tate would be sub­stan­tially di­min­ished if such ob­ject were di­vided, it is al­loc­ated in its en­tirety to one of the heirs.

² Where the heirs are un­able to agree on the di­vi­sion or al­loc­a­tion of an ob­ject, it must be sold and the pro­ceeds di­vided.

³ At the re­quest of an heir, such sale must be car­ried out at auc­tion and, in the ab­sence of agree­ment among the heirs, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity de­cides wheth­er such auc­tion is to be pub­lic or only among the heirs.

¹ Where the house or apart­ment in which the spouses lived or the house­hold ef­fects form part of the es­tate, the sur­viv­ing spouse may re­quest that such prop­erty be al­loc­ated to him or her against his or her por­tion.

² Where jus­ti­fied in the cir­cum­stances, at the re­quest of the sur­viv­ing spouse or the oth­er stat­utory heirs of the de­ceased, a usu­fruct or right of res­id­ence may be gran­ted rather than own­er­ship of the home.

³ The sur­viv­ing spouse can­not claim such rights in re­spect of premises in which the de­ceased prac­tised a pro­fes­sion or ran a busi­ness and which are re­quired by one of his or her is­sue in or­der to con­tin­ue the pro­fes­sion or busi­ness, sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of ag­ri­cul­tur­al law of suc­ces­sion.

⁴ The same pro­vi­sions ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to re­gistered part­ners.⁵⁴⁶

¹ Items which by their nature be­long to­geth­er must not be sep­ar­ated if one of the heirs ob­jects to such sep­ar­a­tion.

² Fam­ily doc­u­ments and items of spe­cial sen­ti­ment­al value to the fam­ily must not be sold if any of the heirs ob­jects.

³ If the heirs can­not reach agree­ment, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity de­cides wheth­er to sell such items or to al­loc­ate them, against the re­cip­i­ent’s por­tion or oth­er­wise, giv­ing due re­gard to loc­al cus­tom and, in the ab­sence of such cus­tom, to the per­son­al cir­cum­stances of the heirs.

Where the ten­ant of an ag­ri­cul­tur­al en­ter­prise dies and one of his or her heirs con­tin­ues the lease on his or her own, on re­quest he or she may have the en­tire in­vent­ory (live­stock, ma­chinery, sup­plies, etc.) al­loc­ated to him or her and charged to his or her por­tion at its util­ity value.

Claims of the de­ceased against an heir are charged to the lat­ter’s por­tion.

If as a res­ult of the di­vi­sion an heir re­ceives es­tate prop­erty that is pledged to se­cure the debts of the de­ceased, the debt to the pledgee is like­wise trans­ferred to him or her.

Land is charged to the heirs’ por­tions at its mar­ket value as at the time of the di­vi­sion.

¹ Where the heirs are un­able to agree on the mar­ket value, it is es­tim­ated by an of­fi­cially ap­poin­ted ex­pert.⁵⁵⁰

² ...⁵⁵¹

The meth­od of in­clud­ing and al­loc­at­ing ag­ri­cul­tur­al en­ter­prises and ag­ri­cul­tur­al land is gov­erned by the Fed­er­al Act of 4 Oc­to­ber 1991⁵⁵³ on Rur­al Land Rights.

¹ The stat­utory heirs are un­der a mu­tu­al ob­lig­a­tion to place in­to hotch­pot any prop­erty re­ceived from the de­ceased dur­ing his or her life­time as ad­vance­ments against their share of the es­tate.

² Un­less the de­ceased ex­pressly in­struc­ted oth­er­wise, any­thing gif­ted or gran­ted to his or her is­sue by way of dowry, en­dow­ment or as­sign­ment of as­sets, debt re­mis­sion and the like is sub­ject to hotch­pot.

¹ If a per­son ceases to be an heir be­fore or after suc­ces­sion, his or her duty of hotch­pot passes to the heirs that re­place him or her.

² The is­sue of an heir have a duty of hotch­pot in re­spect of ad­vance­ments made in his or her fa­vour even if those ad­vance­ments have not de­volved on them.

¹ When pla­cing prop­erty in hotch­pot, the heirs may at their dis­cre­tion do so either in kind or by im­put­ing its value, even if the ad­vance­ments made in their fa­vour ex­ceed the value of their share of the es­tate.

² The above pro­vi­sions are sub­ject to any con­trary in­struc­tions is­sued by the test­at­or and to the co-heirs’ right to abate­ment of the ad­vance­ments.

¹ Where ad­vance­ments to an heir ex­ceed the value of his or her share of the es­tate, sub­ject to claims in abate­ment, the sur­plus is ex­empt from hotch­pot if it may be shown that the de­ceased in­ten­ded to fa­vour said heir by such ad­vance­ments.

² Ex­emp­tion from hotch­pot is pre­sumed in the case of en­dow­ments in the usu­al or­der of mag­nitude made to the is­sue on their mar­riage.

¹ Hotch­pot is cal­cu­lated ac­cord­ing to the value of the ad­vance­ments on suc­ces­sion or, where the ad­vanced prop­erty has pre­vi­ously been sold, the sale pro­ceeds ob­tained.

² Any ex­pendit­ure on and dam­age to the prop­erty and the nat­ur­al pro­duce de­rived there­from must be al­lowed for among the heirs ac­cord­ing to the rules gov­ern­ing pos­ses­sion.

¹ Un­less it is shown that the de­ceased in­ten­ded oth­er­wise, sums ex­pen­ded by him or her on the up­bring­ing and edu­ca­tion of in­di­vidu­al chil­dren are sub­ject to hotch­pot only in­so­far as they ex­ceed the nor­mal amounts.

² Chil­dren still in edu­ca­tion or who suf­fer from dis­ab­il­it­ies must be gran­ted ap­pro­pri­ate ad­vance pay­ments on di­vi­sion of the es­tate.⁵⁵⁵

Cus­tom­ary oc­ca­sion­al gifts are not sub­ject to hotch­pot.

¹ The di­vi­sion of the es­tate be­comes bind­ing on the heirs once the lots have been formed and re­ceived or on con­clu­sion of the con­tract of di­vi­sion.

² In or­der to be val­id, the con­tract of di­vi­sion must be done in writ­ing.

¹ In or­der to be val­id, con­tracts between heirs re­gard­ing as­sign­ment of shares of the es­tate must be done in writ­ing.⁵⁵⁷

² If such con­tracts are con­cluded by an heir with third parties, they do not give the lat­ter any right to par­ti­cip­ate in the di­vi­sion of the es­tate, but merely con­fer a claim on the share al­loc­ated to that heir as a res­ult of the di­vi­sion.

¹ Con­tracts con­cluded without the in­volve­ment and au­thor­isa­tion of the test­at­or between one heir and an­oth­er or between an heir and a third party re­gard­ing an in­her­it­ance that has not yet de­volved on the heir are not bind­ing.

² Any per­form­ance rendered un­der such con­tracts may be re­claimed.

¹ On com­ple­tion of the di­vi­sion, the co-heirs are mu­tu­ally li­able for the es­tate prop­erty as if they were pur­chasers and vendors.

² They must mu­tu­ally war­rant the ex­ist­ence of claims al­loc­ated to them in the di­vi­sion and, ex­cept in the case of se­cur­it­ies with a mar­ket price, are mu­tu­ally li­able as simple guar­ant­ors for the debt­or’s solvency in the amount at which such claims were brought in­to ac­count.

³ Claims un­der such war­ranty pre­scribe one year after the di­vi­sion or the sub­sequent date on which the claims fell due.

A con­tract of di­vi­sion may be chal­lenged in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing chal­lenge of con­tract in gen­er­al.

¹ Even after the di­vi­sion of the es­tate, the heirs re­main jointly and sev­er­ally li­able with their en­tire prop­erty for the debts of the test­at­or to his or her cred­it­ors, provid­ing the lat­ter have not ex­pressly or ta­citly agreed to a di­vi­sion or trans­fer of such debts.

² The joint and sev­er­al li­ab­il­ity of the co-heirs pre­scribes five years after the di­vi­sion or the sub­sequent date on which the debt claim fell due.

¹ If an heir has paid a debt owed by the de­ceased that was not al­loc­ated to him or her in the di­vi­sion, or if he or she has paid more of a debt than he or she has as­sumed, he or she has right of re­course against the co-heirs.

² Re­course is taken first against the per­son who as­sumed such debt in the di­vi­sion.

³ In all oth­er re­spects, the heirs must bear the debts in pro­por­tion to their shares in the es­tate, un­less oth­er­wise agreed.