Inheritance and the Role of Notaries in Inheritance Procedure in the Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract

In the Republic of Northern Macedonia, the right to property and inheritance are guaranteed by the state constitution and the law of inheritance. According to the Macedonian legislature, all citizens, regardless of their differences in terms of religion, race, nationality and gender under the same conditions are equal in inheritance. In the Republic of Northern Macedonia, the inheritance of the deceased is inherited primarily by his children and spouse. They inherit equal parts. In terms of inheritance, the extramarital partner equals the marital spouse, and the extramarital union created by full adoption by blood relation. When there are children of the testator that do not originate from the marriage with the surviving spouse and the property of this spouse is more than the share that would belong to him in the division of the will in equal parts, then each child of the testator has twice as much part of the inheritance than the spouse. In terms of court proceedings, in the Republic of Northern Macedonia the procedure is conducted before civil courts. The court sets up the proceedings on the basis of official duty when it receives data on the death of a certain person (death certificate). The competent court entrusts this procedure to the Notary, within eight days from the day of the beginning of the procedure. Notaries further have the authority to take action and make decisions in the inheritance procedure. When it comes to the notary as an institution, it is very old, which is proven in various documents from the time of Egyptian and Roman law. With the process of democratization of the legal systems of many countries in the world, and also with the democratization of the legal system in the Republic of North Macedonia, in 1996 notary was introduced as an independent public service, which performs public works for private interest. The significance of this paper relies on the importance of the institute of inheritance and the inheritance procedure as one of the oldest institutes of civil law, i.e. one of the largest non-litigation procedures, but also of the great social significance it has for each individual. In the Republic of North Macedonia, this procedure is regulated by the Law on non-contentious procedure. This paper will try to focus on the work and the entrusted powers of the notary public in the inheritance procedure, as well as why the notary public was entrusted with the conduct of the inheritance procedure. All this is intended to be achieved through theoretical analysis and by analyzing cases before and after it was given to the notaries the authorization for conducting the inheritance procedure in our country. This paper in addition to having theoretical significance, will also have a number of practical aspects. Efforts will be made to show the practical importance of this paper, especially the reasons that contributed to the appearance of this novelty, i.e. the participation of the notary public in this procedure. First of all, with this unloading of the court from the inheritance procedures, the increase of the trust of the citizens, as participants in the inheritance procedure, has been achieved. Apart from this aspect, it also enables the acceleration of the resolution of cases and the increase of the efficiency of our legal system, because the cases will not remain closed in the drawers of judges for years, especially those cases that do not deserve to remain unresolved because they have nothing disputable. Through research methods will be identified difficulties in terms of legislation in the relevant field and the implementation of these legal norms in the application of regulation in this field.