The Inheritance Arrangement According to the Law
- The Identity of the Heirs According to the Law
- Section 2 Law Inheritance states that when a testator passes away without making a will, his heirs inherit him according to the law. Further, The Second Chapter Law Inheritance, entitled "Inheritance by Law", defines who are those "legal heirs" of the testator and their share of the inheritance, in various possible scenarios. This chapter determines, therefore, the relevant normative framework in our case.
- Section 10 The law determines the identity of the heirs according to the law, on the level of principle. According to this section, the heirs of the testator are his spouse, as well as those referred to in the law as "relatives of the testator", who are the children of the testator and their descendants; the testator's parents and their descendants; and the parents of the testator's parents (grandparents) and their descendants (hereinafter: Relatives of the testator or Relatives).
- The order of priority between relatives is regulated In the section 12 The law states that: "The testator's children take precedence over his parents, his parents take precedence over his parents' parents".
This section therefore lists three circles of family kinship for the testator, known as "parentales" (Parentéle), when a close parentle postpones the one after it (see, for example: High Court of Justice 5132/22 Anonymous v. Sharia Court of Appeals, verse 8 [Nevo] (June 30,2024) (hereinafter: the Matter Anonymous); Shmuel Shilo Interpretation of the Law Inheritance 1965 Volume 1 143 (1995) (hereinafter: Shilo)).
If so, the first parentale includes the testator's children; the second parent includes the testator's parents; and the third parent is the testator's parents. If the testator left relatives from the first parentale, other relatives have no right to inherit him; If the testator does not have relatives left from the first parentale, the relatives from the second parentala will inherit it, and the heirs from the third parentala will have no right of inheritance; and if the testator does not leave behind relatives from the first and second parentals, his relatives from the third parentala will inherit him.
- Section 14(A) Law Inheritance Completing the Sections 10 and12 of the Law and the arrangement relating to the identity of the heirs according to the law, which establishes the principle of representation (or the principle of succession), as follows:
Successors of an heir
- (a) The child of a testator who died before him and left children, the children inherit in his place, and in this way the children of each of the testator's relatives who died before him are inherited [...].
According to this principle, when one of the testator's relatives is not alive at the time of his death, his children come in his shoes, so that they inherit the portion of the testator's inheritance that their parent would have been entitled to had he been alive. By virtue of the aforementioned principle, therefore, the order of priorities between the parentals (which is fixed In the section 12 of the law), even when those belonging to a certain parentala died before the testator (then, as stated, the children of the deceased relative come in his shoes; and see: Shilo, at p. 143; Shaul Shohat, Nachum Feinberg and Yehezkel Flomin Inheritance and Estate Law 68-69 (Expanded and Updated Seventh Edition 2014) (hereinafter: Shohat, Feinberg and Flomin); Michael Corinaldi Inheritance Law - Wills, Inheritances and Estates 64-72 (2nd Extended Edition 2012) (hereinafter: Corinaldi); Interest Anonymous, in verse 8). Thus, for example, if the testator's son (who belongs to the first parent) dies before the testator, the son's child (who is the testator's grandson) comes in his place, and therefore he is given priority to the testator's parent (who belongs to the second parent).