Who inherits without a will in Romania?

The spouse receives a quarter of the estate and the descendants collectively receive three quarters.

The share depends on who the other heirs are. The spouse takes a third with both privileged ascendants and privileged collateral relatives, a half with only one of those groups, and three quarters with ordinary ascendants or ordinary collateral relatives. With no other heirs the spouse takes everything.

Heirs are called in order: descendants; then ascendants and privileged collateral relatives (the siblings and their descendants); then ordinary ascendants; then ordinary collateral relatives up to the fourth degree. If there are no heirs the estate is vacant and collected by the municipality.

The official fact sheet does not describe rights for unmarried or registered partners. Treat an unmarried partner as having no automatic right and take advice.

The spouse, descendants and privileged ascendants are forced heirs, each owed half of what they would receive by law. The surviving spouse may also have a right to live in the marital home and to the household furniture.

In this EU country the Succession Regulation applies to people who die after 16 August 2015: the whole estate is generally governed by the law of the country where the person had their habitual residence at death, unless they chose the law of their nationality in a will. A foreigner living here, or a citizen living abroad, can therefore be governed by a different law than the one described on this page.

Romania belongs to the Civil law family. Succession law grows out of the legal tradition, so it helps to know how the system works.

Read the Romania legal-system profile in the Legal Families Atlas →
Who owns what in a marriage in Romania? →

• European e-Justice Portal: succession in Romania