Passing on your share of an inheritance: what you answer for and what not

They are Articles 1216 to 1219 of Title VI of Book Four of the Civil Code of 2020. They say what someone who transfers an inheritance or a bundle of rights in a block answers for, and how accounts are settled between assignor and assignee.

Whoever assigns an inheritance without listing its contents, whoever assigns in a lump the whole of certain rights, rents or products, and whoever receives them. Everything these articles provide on credits and reimbursements yields to a different agreement.

• For the assignor to answer only for their capacity as heir, that the assignment be made without enumerating the things the inheritance is composed of.Verified against the official source
• For a lump assignment, that the whole of certain rights, rents or products be assigned: then the legitimacy of the whole in general is answered for.Verified against the official source
• Crediting the assignee with the fruits taken or anything received from the inheritance before the assignment, save a different agreement.Verified against the official source

• The assignment document, because whether the things the inheritance is composed of were enumerated depends on it.
• The account of what the assignor paid for the inheritance’s debts and charges and of the fruits they took before assigning.

1. 1

   Step 1: Answering for being an heir, not for the contents

   Article 1216 bounds the liability of someone who sells their inheritance without itemizing it: a person who assigns an inheritance without enumerating the things it is composed of is only bound to answer for their capacity as heir. If it turns out they were not one, they answer; if the estate is worth less than the buyer hoped, they do not.

2. 2

   Step 2: The lump assignment of rights or rents

   Article 1217 applies the same logic outside inheritance: a person who assigns in a lump the whole of certain rights, rents or products complies by answering for the legitimacy of the whole in general, but is not bound to warrant each of the parts it is composed of.

3. 3

   Step 3: The exception: if you lose the whole or nearly all

   The same article closes with the proviso that must be read: except in case of eviction of the whole or of the greater part. There the assignor does answer, even though the assignment was in a lump.

4. 4

   Step 4: What the assignor had already collected

   Article 1218 stops double collection: if the assignor has taken some fruits or received something from the inheritance they assign, they must credit them to the assignee, unless something different was agreed. The final clause matters: it is a default rule, not a mandatory one.

5. 5

   Step 5: And what the assignor had paid

   Article 1219 closes the account the other way: the assignee must, for their part, satisfy the assignor everything the assignor paid for the debts and charges of the inheritance and for the credits they hold against it, save a different agreement. Whoever receives the inheritance receives those pending accounts too.

6. 6

   Step 6: What these articles do not settle

   They do not say how a succession is opened, who the heirs are, how the estate is divided, what form the assignment must take, or what the co-heirs may do about it. All of that is the law of succession and we did not read it for this guide: here there is only what an assignor answers for.

The assignment is executed between assignor and assignee. If the capacity as heir, the scope of what was assigned or the accounts between the parties are disputed, the Court of First Instance decides. The Code names no agency here.

• Expecting the assignor of an inheritance to answer for the estate’s value: they answer only for their capacity as heir.
• Demanding warranty piece by piece in a lump assignment: the legitimacy of the whole in general is what is answered for.
• Forgetting the exception of eviction of the whole or of the greater part.
• The assignor keeping fruits already taken from the assigned inheritance without crediting them.
• Believing that fruits rule is mandatory: it yields to a different agreement.
• Not reimbursing the assignor what they paid for the inheritance’s debts and charges.
• Enumerating the things of the inheritance without noticing that this changes the scope of liability.
• Looking in this chapter for the rules of succession: they are not here.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico

  Poder Judicial

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov