Can I disinherit my daughter who has cut her ties?
Can I disinherit my daughter who has cut her ties?
"Further to your article published on 29 May 2017, I would like some explanations on the subject of exhereration. In fact, I have been dealing with family conflicts with my daughter for over 10 years now. Following her marriage, she virtually cut ties with me, my wife, and her brothers and sisters. However, I don't know the reason for her behaviour. I would like to know if it is possible to disinherit her.
A, Geneva
Exheritance is a disposition mortis causa that makes it possible to "disinherit" a rightful heir who normally has an irreducible fraction of the estate.
The law strictly regulates disinheritance: according to art. 477 of the Civil Code (CC), an heir with right to reserve may be disinherited by means of a disposition mortis causa either if he has committed a serious criminal offence against the deceased or one of his close relatives, or if he has seriously failed in the duties that the law imposes on him towards the deceased or his family. Such duties arise in particular from the rules of the Civil Code relating to family law, the law of filiation, matrimonial law and registered partnerships. Examples include the duty to provide maintenance to needy relatives in the direct line (art. 328 CC) or the duty of mutual assistance, consideration and respect owed by parents and children (art. 272 CC).
It is necessary that the act committed by the disinherited person constitutes a serious, unlawful and culpable breach of the duties imposed by law, capable of justifying the withdrawal of his right to his legal reserve as heir. The Federal Court has specified that the acts in question must be of such a nature as to ruin the family community and that they must have actually had such a result in the particular case.
Our Supreme Court has already ruled that failure to observe the habits or expectations of the settlor, choosing an unsuitable occupation, marrying a person whom the settlor does not like, changing religion or holding divergent political views are not valid grounds for disinheritance. Similarly, there are no grounds for disqualification if the heir behaves improperly and disloyally in his business dealings with the disposing party or if he gives truthful evidence to the contrary.
On the other hand, case law has recognised as grounds for disinheritance the fact that a daughter of a disposant abandons her husband and children in order to go and live with her lover, when a son brings an unfounded complaint against his father, when a husband persists in a long-term adulterous relationship or when a wife deprives her seriously ill husband of all care and financial means and imposes indecent living conditions on him.
You will therefore not be able to disinherit your daughter simply because she has distanced herself from you, and you will have to examine in greater detail whether her behaviour constitutes a wilful breach of her legal duties, as summarised above.
