EL DERECHO DE REVERSIÓN DEL ARTÍCULO 812 DEL CÓDIGO CIVIL.

Abstract

Drawn from the French Civil Code, the right of escheat is foreign to the Spanish inheritance system: 1. Because it forcibly splits the estate of the descendent/donee into two different, independent legacies, first, the legal, privileged or special legacy under article 812 with respect to given property, and second, the normal, ordinary legacy made up of the remaining assets of the predecessor in title, which is governed by the general rules. 2. Because of the problems that arise when the given assets undergo modifications (alluvion, avulsion, adjunction, specification...). To avoid these problems, it is proposed that a future reform of the Civil Code eliminate this figure, because similar results could be achieved by means of the conventional escheat accord under article 641 of the Code, without the need to split a single estate into two different legacies.