If you do n’t know, it ’s hard! What is the 3-month rule of inheritance? December 18, 20:31

Do you know the “three-month rule” of inheritance? This is a rule that you can choose whether to inherit or not, and this is within 3 months. However, you may not be familiar if you are not a person who has inherited. In fact, there were quite a lot of people around me who didn't know, and I didn't know. However, there are unexpected pitfalls if you do not know this rule. (Ministry of Economic Affairs, Asami Terada)

3 options within 3 months

The three-month rule for inheritance is stipulated in Article 915, Paragraph 1 of the Civil Code.

“The heir must give a simple or limited approval or waiver of the inheritance within three months from when he knows that the inheritance has begun for himself.”

“Heir” is a person who receives heritage. However, inheritance is not limited to positive assets such as cash, precious metals, and real estate with high asset values. There is also the possibility of taking over negative assets such as debt and vacant houses with no asset value.

Unfortunately, there is no way to take over only positive assets.

However, the law allows you to select three methods depending on the inherited property.

First, “simple approval”
This is a method of accepting all inherited assets including negative assets such as debt.

The second is "Abandoned inheritance"
It is a system that refuses to become an heir by offering to the family court "No property will be inherited".

The third is “limited approval”
This is a system in which positive assets and negative assets are inherited, but even if negative assets increase more than expected, the obligation to pay remains within the range of positive assets. We prepare documents such as property lists and submit them to the family court, and proceed with the procedure, but when there are multiple heirs, it is necessary to obtain the agreement of all heirs, so it is not used very much Hmm.

The civil law article stipulates that the period until these three choices are made (consideration period) is "within 3 months".

So when do you start from this three-month period? This is easy to make a mistake, but it is not from when the person who left the inheritance (the heir) died.

According to the text, “From when I learned that there was an inheritance for myself”.

In other words, when you know that the deceased died and the inheritance began. When I knew that I became an heir. The three months of deliberation will start when these two conditions are met.

Why is it 3 months?

In the rush of a relative's death, the contents of the property are examined in detail, and if necessary, documents are prepared and “waiver” or “limited approval” is offered to the court.
It's hard to do this within 3 months.

In the first place, why is the contemplation period 3 months? The reason for setting the deadline is that civil law textbooks explain that if the inheritance is unclear, the legal relationship will not be stable and may be disadvantageous to the stakeholders.

However, I couldn't find anything to answer the question of why it was three months.

According to Prof. Masamitsu Matsukawa of Osaka Gakuin University, this three-month rule is also included in the Meiji Civil Code, and the author of the Meiji Civil Code who is the father of the Japanese Civil Code, It is that we are touching on the grounds.

The following points are written there.

“In many inheritance cases, a period of three months is sufficient to do the investigation, but if the investigation requires a particularly long period, it can be extended by the court. Even three months should never feel inconvenient. ''

Prof. Matsukawa talks as follows.

“The drafter of the Civil Code would have thought it would be possible with a three-month contemplation period. In the past it was natural to take over the property of a relative, but now the content of the property and the relationship with the relative have changed. Some people think that three months is short. You need to think about what the inheritance system of the times is. "

Pitfalls of the 3-month rule

In the words of Kenjiro Ume introduced earlier, if it is likely that it will take some time to investigate inheritance, you can extend the three-month contemplation period by applying to the family court under the current civil law.

However, this three-month rule has an unexpected pitfall.

If three months have passed without doing anything, it is considered simply approved, and in many cases, inheritance cannot be abandoned.

We interviewed a woman who had inherited an old house with no asset value from his father who had been insulated for 30 years.

The woman did not know the three-month rule and consulted a lawyer after the deliberation period, but she said that she first knew that she could no longer give up.

The woman lamented, "I didn't know that there was such a bond.

How are the three-month rules accepted at the inheritance consultation site? I interviewed a judicial scrivener corporation in Osaka City.

According to the representative judicial scrivener Motoshi Shiiba, there are a series of consultations, "I've passed three months, but can I abandon inheritance?"

“In the first place, there are a lot of people who don't know about the three-month rule. If you thought you wouldn't have any inherited assets, you suddenly inherited a negative legacy such as debt. There are many cases where the moon has passed. "

However, according to Mr. Shiiba, in some cases, inheritance may be abandoned.

If the Supreme Court believes that the deceased has no inheritance in 1984 and there is a good reason for this, the deliberation period is "the heir has recognized all or part of the inheritance. It shows the judgment of “starts from time”.

In other words, the idea is that a three-month contemplation period starts when you know the existence of negative inheritance.

However, even in this case, it is difficult to abandon inheritance if you have already inherited positive assets such as cash.

A mechanism to protect property from “sudden inheritance”

Recently, there have been a series of cases in which inheritance such as debts and negative real estate has suddenly come from relatives that have been far away.

Prof. Hiroki Kanno of Rikkyo University argues that you should consider creating a mechanism to protect your property from such unexpected inheritance.

“The current Japanese inheritance system is that there is a risk of incurring unexpected debts to the heirs. In the 2000s, in Korea and Taiwan, we will not bear debts beyond the positive assets inherited by the heirs. `` In Japan, there is a need for a mechanism to protect assets from unexpected risks. ''

You can extend the three-month rule in the Japanese inheritance system from the Meiji period, but there are pitfalls if you do nothing. There are exceptions.

You may have thought it was a complicated mechanism, but now you need to understand this rule to protect your property from the risks of inheritance.

On the other hand, I felt that discussions should be promoted by society as a whole on how to change the inheritance system based on the diversifying family and relatives.

Economic Department reporter Asami Terada joined NHK in 2009.
After working for Kochi Broadcasting, he was in charge of the Ministry of Finance and the distribution industry in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Currently, he covers a wide range of fields, from consumption to inheritance issues.