Features of Legal Regulation of the Certain Types of Inheritance Agreements

Abstract

Introduction. In the Inheritance Law doctrine much attention is paid to the Inheritance Agreement construct as a universal tool for planning the inheritance procedure. However, the content of the Inheritance Agreement depends on the purpose of the agreement. In the present article, the features of each type of the Inheritance Agreement are defined. The aim of the study is to determine the legal regulatory specifics of the relationships being the subject of different types of the Inheritance Agreements and justify the need to apply a particular method of defending the interests of the Parties thereto.Materials and Methods. The social relationships arising from entering, executing and terminating the certain types of the Inheritance Agreements are the object of the present study. The methodological basis of the research includes the general scientific methods: formal-logical analysis, structural-functional and induction methods. From among the specific scientific methods, the legalistic and comparative-legal methods have been used.Results. Based on the purpose of the Inheritance Agreement, five types of this legal construct have been distinguished: the Inheritance Agreement designated for a testator to receive income during his lifetime from the after death descent of inheritance; the one used for financing the implementation of the important testator’s interests after his death; the agreement concluded to encourage the heir’s certain behavior before and (or) after testator’s death, including management of a testator's property; the Inheritance Agreement protecting the will of a testator from being contested by heirs; the Matrimonial Inheritance Agreement. Each type has the features of legal regulation expressed in the ways of defending the rights and interests of the parties to the agreement.Discussion and Conclusions. The analysis of the implementation efficiency of the considered types of the Inheritance Agreements in terms of achieving their Parties’ goals, allowed formulating the following conclusions. For ensuring fulfillment of a testator’s will after his death, it is necessary to allow keeping the record of the inheritance acquiring conditions during the period established for the accession to the heirship. To strengthen protection of a testator’s counterparty in the compensatory contracts, it is necessary to allow encumbering the future inheritance with pledge; impose on a testator the obligation to inform a heir about the alienation of property, being an object of an agreement and reimburse him the incurred expenses; recognise the right of a heir for reimbursement of all the losses incurred due to relying on a testator’s promise to transfer to him the property after death.