The European Certificate of Succession (referred to here as the “ECS”) is a formal certification of the facts of the succession of a deceased person, which has been introduced by the Succession Regulation (EU) 650/2012, which is due to come into force on August 17th 2015, and by Regulation (EU) No 1329/2014 of 9 December 2014 establishing the Forms referred to in the Succession Regulation.
The standardised forms will be available to citizens as of 17 August 2015 on the e-justice Portal of the European Commission.
The ECS will be able to be used where there are cross-border assets, where for example an heir or a legatee needs to prove their entitlement or rights relating to the inheritance of property or a bank account in another Member State country.
It could also be used by an executor of a will or administrator of the estate to prove their entitlement to manage the assets.
Each Member state will designate which is the competent authority in their country to issue an ECS. In Italy only a Notary will be competent to issue this. The Certificate can be issued in any of the languages of the Member States. It will be valid for 6 months from the date of issue.
The issue of an ECS is not mandatory, but is a tool which can and will be used frequently in cross-border EU successions. The application form for the ECS is now downloadable from the website of the EU and will shortly be available for compilation online. The certificate will contain details of whether the succession is testate or intestate, and will contain further information such as the applicable law of the succession, who are the heirs, executor, legatees.
