Why succession law is about shaping, not just settling
Succession is one of the areas where the value of a lawyer shows most clearly — provided you come in time. Those who arrange matters during their lifetime have a choice. Those who come after the death of a relative are usually managing what is left.
Legal advice and drafting have been my focus since 1994, and succession law has been part of it from the start. It is a field where legal precision and everyday life sit unusually close together: a will is a legal instrument, but it decides family relationships that are meant to hold for decades.
If you are not German, read this first
Germany is home to a great many people whose family, property or nationality reaches across a border. That changes the picture in three ways.
Which law applies. Under the EU Succession Regulation, your habitual residence normally determines the law governing your whole estate. Living in Bonn can therefore mean German succession law applies to a flat in another country. You may choose the law of your nationality instead — but only expressly, and only in a will.
Which court is competent. The same regulation also determines jurisdiction, and it introduced the European Certificate of Succession, which is recognised across most of the EU and often spares heirs parallel proceedings.
What your existing documents do. A will drafted abroad may well be formally valid here and still fail to achieve what you wanted, because German law knows institutions your home law does not — and vice versa.
Arrangements during your lifetime
Wills and contracts of inheritance. Statutory succession is the legislator’s fallback for people who have arranged nothing. It regularly produces results nobody wanted — such as a community of heirs between a surviving spouse and children in which no one can act alone. A will creates clarity. A contract of inheritance (Erbvertrag) also binds, which can be the decisive difference in business succession and in blended families.
The “Berliner Testament”. Spouses commonly appoint each other as sole heir and the children as final heirs. That is often right — but it binds the survivor and triggers compulsory-share claims on the first death. Both can be planned for if considered in advance.
Lifetime transfers. Often a sharper instrument than any will: they use tax allowances more than once, create clarity among the living, and can be secured with a usufruct, a right of residence or rights of revocation. Anyone transferring assets should know precisely what they are giving up.
Powers of attorney and directives. A Vorsorgevollmacht, a Betreuungsverfügung and a Patientenverfügung belong to every estate plan. Without a power of attorney, the guardianship court decides in an emergency, not your family.
Once the succession has occurred
Here too the decisive question is not “who is right?” but “what serves your long-term interest?”. Inheritance disputes have the unpleasant quality of dividing families permanently, and costs rise with every procedural step.
I examine the legal position, clarify your objectives with you and look first for a negotiated solution. My training as a mediator and three decades of negotiating experience help. Where that leads nowhere, I represent you consistently — before the probate court and in civil proceedings.
Typical occasions: unclear or contradictory wills, doubts about testamentary capacity, division of a community of heirs, claims to information and valuation, compulsory share and supplementary claims after gifts, disclaimer of inheritance, estate debts and limitation of liability.
A business in the estate
Where a company or a shareholding forms part of an estate, succession law meets company law — and the articles of association generally take precedence over the will. If the two do not fit together, exactly what nobody wanted occurs: heirs who cannot become shareholders, or shareholders who must be paid off while the money is needed in the business.
Here my practical experience from more than two decades as a business consultant and managing director comes into play: a succession arrangement must not only hold in law but work in the business.
How we begin
Call or write and tell me what it is about — a few lines are enough. In a first conversation we clarify whether and how I can help, and what it will cost. Bring what you have: existing wills, transfer deeds, land register extracts, articles of association.