Postmortal succession on the example of Polish law in a comparative perspective - Between inheritance law and nonprobate transfers

This book presents numerous instruments which create postmortal succession on the example of Polish law. Alongside the solution in inheritance law, one may apply specific inheritance (e.g. of agricultural farms) that benefits only such heirs who meet additional requirements, as well as undertake legal acts that allow to decide on heritability (or non-heritability) character of rights and duties (e.g. within the contract of mandate or company contracts). There are also numerous legislative instruments that allow for succession otherwise than by inheritance so that particular persons (and not heirs) benefit after the decedent. Such instruments include regulations of civil law but also e.g. banking law, social insurance law which are often comparable with nonprobate instruments (or willsubstitutes) under American law or German Sonderrechtsnachfolge.

Wojciech Ba?czyk, Ph.D. in law, is assistant at the Chair of Civil Law of the Jagiellonian University (UJ) in Kraków, director of the American Law Program of the Catholic University of America (Washington D.C.) and UJ and attorney at law.