The mandatory part of the will
The mandatory part describes the minimum financial participation on the estate of a deceased. He is entitled to the close relatives who the deceased has excluded from the succession in his last will. If the widowed mother appoints her only son as heir, he plays no role. However, the situation is different if there are two or more heirs with equal rights who are to be given different amounts.
The compulsory part often comes into play. Disinheriting a person is only possible if this person has proven to be “unworthy of inheritance”. The testator must disinherit the person by will. However, this requires massive mistakes. If the testator wants to “punish” an heir, he can reduce his or her claim to the compulsory portion. As a rule, this cannot be avoided, since close relatives have a legal right. The testator cannot therefore completely exclude a certain group of people from the inheritance. There are two ways to disinherit a relative. In the former case, the testator draws up a will and declares the legal heir disinherited. In the second case, he does not mention the legal heir in the will and uses one or other heirs instead. As a result, all unnamed persons are automatically disinherited.
The compulsory portion is 50 percent of the regular inheritance entitlement. It is important that the compulsory portion can only be paid out in euros. It is not possible to inherit the sports car as a compulsory portion. However, the compulsory portion also entails a massive risk for the preferred heir.
Here’s an example: A deceased has two children. His assets consist of a single-family house worth 400,000 euros. One child should only receive the compulsory portion: 50 percent of 200,000 euros, i.e. 100,000 euros.
Since the compulsory portion can only be paid out in the form of money, the other child has to come up with 100,000 euros. If this is not the case, the property goes on sale. Some foreclosures in Germany resulted from the Compulsory Share Clause.