Should I accept or renounce a succession?

The protection most people do not know about

The fear is almost always the same: "if there were debts, will I have to pay them?" In principle, no.

Heirs answer for the deceased's obligations only up to the value of the property they receive (article 625). A succession in deficit does not reach into your personal patrimony.

Which means accepting is not the gamble people imagine — with one exception, which is the next section.

The trap: dispensing the liquidator from the inventory

An inventory looks like a costly formality, and families are often tempted to waive it to move faster. It is the most dangerous decision in the whole liquidation.

The liquidator may be dispensed from making an inventory only if all the heirs consent. And if they consent, they become liable for the debts of the succession beyond the value of the property they receive (article 799).

The waiver trades a few weeks of delay for the loss of the article 625 protection. Never sign one without understanding what it carries.

The six months, and how it extends

A successor has six months from the day the right arises to deliberate and choose. During that period they cannot be condemned as an heir, unless they have already accepted.

The period is extended by operation of law by as many days as needed to allow at least 60 days from the closing of the inventory (article 632). The logic is simple: an informed choice cannot be demanded before the contents of the estate are known.

So if the inventory is slow, time is not running against you — but it is better documented than assumed.

Be careful about the effect of silence, though: a successor who knows they are one and does not renounce within the period for deliberation is presumed to have accepted, unless the court extends the period (article 633). Doing nothing is therefore not neutral — in practice it is acceptance.

How a succession is actually renounced

Renunciation is express. It is made by notarial act en minute, or by a judicial declaration recorded by the court (article 646). An email, a letter or a verbal agreement among heirs is not a renunciation.

The option is also indivisible (article 630): you cannot accept the house and renounce the debts.

Watch, too, for tacit acceptance. Acceptance is tacit "where the successor performs an act that necessarily implies his intention of accepting" (article 637). Selling estate property, cashing a sum, or dealing with the deceased's effects as your own can therefore close the option without a single document being signed.

One act that closes everything: concealment

A successor who in bad faith has diverted or concealed estate property, or omitted it from the inventory, is deemed to have renounced the succession — despite any prior acceptance (article 651).

Someone who quietly sets an asset aside before the inventory does not gain that asset: they lose their entire share. It is a rule worth raising in estates where property starts disappearing before anyone has taken account of it.

When renouncing genuinely makes sense

Renouncing keeps its value in several cases: a plainly insolvent estate whose liquidation you do not want to manage, assets negligible against the work involved, or a wish to pass your share to the next rank.

But renouncing from fear of debts, once an inventory has been made, usually means walking away from real net assets.

Have the inventory drawn up first, decide second. That is exactly the order the Code contemplates.