THE UNCLAIMED INHERITANCE AS DEFENDANT: FOUR ODYSSEYS IN THE COURTS

Abstract

This study analyzes the substantive and procedural issues that emerge when one of the parties in litigation is a «vacant or unclaimed inheritance». We revise the specific legal and factual difficulties of a suit in which a vacant inheritance is involved, taking as the starting point the formal recognition of its passive procedural standing in article 6.1.4º LEC, previously admitted by the courts. These difficulties are due, mainly, to the ambiguity of this legal recognition and its lack of development beyond articles 6.1.4º and 7.5 LEC. We first address the procedural complexity that may involve the question of whether the defendant lives or not, and his estate is provisionally without a person who has title, either before the trial, during or at the time of enforcing the judgment. Then we analyze the set of measures that are necessary for our courts so as to not cause a lack of defenses to the future owners of the vacant inheritance (the heirs), because that could cause the invalidity of judicial proceedings. Finally, we examine the doctrine of the D.G.R.N. concerning the registrations resulting from judicial decisions over real property integrated into a vacant inheritance.