Inheritance questions

Nyeden

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Sep 2, 2005
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I have a few question regarding inheritance in DR.

Is it true that upon death, all of the husband's assets will go to his wife,. the children will inherit only upon the wife/spouse's death.
If both parents are dead, I heard the the inheritance goes the oldest child, and if the oldest child is deceased then it goes to the youngest.. which leaves the middle child out, ( this makes no sense to me)

I also heard that when someone reaches over the age of 85 the oldest child has the rights to make any decision concerning the parent' assets. Is this true?
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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Uh huh!

50-50 Wife and kids split all assets from marriage. It is possible to give away up to 25% of assets, but 99.8% never do that.

Nothing about age.

HB (recommend you look up posts by DR Lawyer on this point, it has been widely discussed...)
 

AnonTraveler

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Aug 6, 2008
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I have a few question regarding inheritance in DR.

Is it true that upon death, all of the husband's assets will go to his wife,. the children will inherit only upon the wife/spouse's death.
If both parents are dead, I heard the the inheritance goes the oldest child, and if the oldest child is deceased then it goes to the youngest.. which leaves the middle child out, ( this makes no sense to me)

I also heard that when someone reaches over the age of 85 the oldest child has the rights to make any decision concerning the parent' assets. Is this true?

A very interesting question, particularly if you assume some of the assets are held in a Dominican corporation as most are in this country and those corporations are held by offshore corporations.

Consider this:

Person A is married, has three kids and owns Corp B domiciled in Panama.
Corp C owns Corp D which is a Dominican corporation that, in turn, owns several real estate properties in the DR.
Person A dies.

How can Dominican law compel a Panamanian corporation to allocate any of its assets under the DR forced heirship rules? I do not believe it can. It seems as if Person A was far enough removed form Dominican law that it has no say in the matter.

Right?
 

Castellamonte

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Mar 3, 2005
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A very interesting question, particularly if you assume some of the assets are held in a Dominican corporation as most are in this country and those corporations are held by offshore corporations.

Consider this:

Person A is married, has three kids and owns Corp B domiciled in Panama.
Corp C owns Corp D which is a Dominican corporation that, in turn, owns several real estate properties in the DR.
Person A dies.

How can Dominican law compel a Panamanian corporation to allocate any of its assets under the DR forced heirship rules? I do not believe it can. It seems as if Person A was far enough removed form Dominican law that it has no say in the matter.

Right?

I'm going to rashly assume you meant Corp C is in Pamana which in turn owns the Dominican company (Corp D) which owns the property.

On that assumption, the Dominican law has nothing to say on the matter. The Panamanian company continues to own the Dominican company outright and whatever the by laws of the Panamanian company are related to control of the corporation will prevail.

However, any other property owned by the individual such as vehicles, jewelry, bank accounts, etc. here in the DR under his/her name will get split amongst the heirs.

At least this is my understanding. I sure hope I'm right cause this is they way I have my companies set up! <grin>
 

Fabio J. Guzman

DR1 Expert
Jan 1, 2002
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If the Panamanian structure was set up to evade the forced-heirship rules in the Civil Code, it is possible to pierce the corporate veil(s) in a Dominican court in order to grant the children their due.

As for the notion that when somebody reaches the age of 85, he or she loses automatically the capacity to contract, it is simply not true.