ПРЕДНАЦРТ ГРАЂАНСКОГ ЗАКОНИКА РЕПУБЛИКЕ СРБИЈЕ И НАСЛЕЂИВАЊЕ
Succession Issues in the Preliminary Draft of the Serbian Civil Code

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, the author provides a critical analysis of the new legal solutions on the institute of succession which are contained in the Preliminary Draft of the Civil Code of the Republic of Serbia. Comparing the existing succession provisions and the novelties envisaged in the Preliminary Draft of the Serbian Civil Code, the author points to their advantages and drawbacks. In the author’s opinion, some of the proposed solutions are highly valuable and deserve ultimate respect; as such, they should certainly be included in the final version of the Serbian Civil Code. It primarily refers to the legal provisions regulating the following issues: the inheritance agreement as an admissible legal ground for invoking succession; the privileged position of a nasciturus (unborn child) irrespective of the time of conception; the requirement that holographic wills must be dated; introducing the principle of favor testamenti interpretation; making a will null and void because it completely departs from the legal form of a testamentary document; the possibility of making an agreement on assignment and disposition of property in one’s lifetime and the possibility of making a contract on lifetime support/maintenance which will be drawn in court before a judge or in the notary public office (in the form of a notarial record); the responsibility for the decedent’s debts by the heir who is assigned to receive a portion of the succession estate; and the protection of national citizens in cases when a foreign authority is in charge of the succession proceedings. On the other hand, some legal solutions call for additional consideration and the appointed Commission has to be cautious in assessing the grounds for their inclusion in the legal text of the new Civil Code. It primarily refers to the solutions regulating the following issues: the unworthiness to succeed; establishing the objective statutory time limit for the legatee’s claim; the admissibility of fideicommissary substitution but on one occasion only; and the conditions for making the inheritance agreement final and effective.

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