How do you ensure that heirs succeed each other?
How do you ensure that heirs succeed each other?
I've just lost someone close to me and I'm waiting for the courts to inform me of his last wishes. However, there are whispers in the family that it might be a commissioner's susbstitution or something like that. But what does that mean? Does it have anything to do with the police or any kind of auction?
S. Nyon
The "substitution of trustees" is a clause that a person planning his or her succession can include in his or her will or in a contract of inheritance. It allows him or her to designate, for the same property, two successive successors, the first of whom will be responsible for delivering the property to the second at a certain time, generally upon his or her own death.
Let's take an example to help us understand: Mr Haydn wants to leave his grand piano to his protégé Mr Mozart. However, after 20 years, he would like the piano to revert to the young Beethoven, who has just started solfeggio.
Thanks to the substitution of trusteeship, Mr Haydn can pass on his piano twice, successively: he can decide that the instrument will first go to Mr Mozart, who will be the "encumbered heir", and that Mr Mozart will be obliged to hand it over to Mr Beethoven after 20 years, who will be the "called heir".
The person planning their estate in this way is free to decide when the substitution takes place; if they do not specify, it will be on the death of the encumbered heir.
The encumbered heir acquires full ownership of the property concerned, but cannot dispose of it as he wishes: he must take particular care of it and refrain from selling it, as he will one day have to pass it on to the named heir.
If the named heir is no longer alive when the succession is opened or has not accepted the succession, the property will in principle remain the property of the encumbered heir, who will therefore be released from any encumbrance.
Mechanisms are provided to protect the expectations of the heir called upon: in particular, an inventory of the property affected by the substitution must be made, which in principle will be the responsibility of the Justice of the Peace, and, if necessary, the encumbered heir must be asked to provide security.
Finally, it should be noted that Swiss law allows only one substitution, so it is not possible to foresee that a third or even fourth person will end up inheriting the property in question. Mr Chopin cannot therefore be part of this cascade mechanism, unless Mr Beethoven or Mr Mozart favour him in their own wills.
