Don’t pay off your family debts at inheritance! Or else you’re liable for everything!

7 comments

1. that’s really nothing new or surprising, you either accept everything or nothing when it comes to inheritance. You can select which parts you accept and which you reject.

2. Swiss inheritance is pretty strange. My partner’s family “turned down” an inheritance as they weren’t in close contact and believed the deceased person was in lots of debt that they would inherit.

   18 months later the government gets in touch to say they inherit loads of money anyway. Somebody did the work of liquidating off all their assets and paying all the debt, and then handed over everything that was left over.

   So it seems you have two choices:

   1. “Accept” the inheritance, now you have loads of work to do and a risk of being saddled with debt.
   2. “Reject” the inheritance, have the government deal with everything, potentially get money anyway.

   I think in most other countries you cannot inherit debt. A deceased person’s debts are paid off before the inheritance is paid out, but if there are still debts left over they get cancelled.

   CAVEAT: I am pretty confused about this and maybe someone more knowledgeable can explain better!

3. Bad decisions in a post mourning situation. If you are unsure about the content of an inheritance: Demand an officiary inventory.

4. He should declare bankruptcy, the whole thing sounds fishy tbh tho

5. Ah inheriting debt.

   What a perfectly normal, modern thing to to do.

   Because it couldn’t be that swiss institutes are at fault for loaning money poorly, but it is actually your fault for having a relative die.

6. When my sister died in Germany a few years ago, I at first rejected the inheritance believing she didn’t have any major assets and only debts. Turns out she owned two fully paid off apartments she was renting out for income.

   The city Nachlassamt contacted me and told me there was a considerable sum left over after her debts were paid off and if I still wanted to reject the entire inheritance. I changed my mind and got the remainder.

   But yes, at least in Germany, accepting an inheritance means also accepting any debts.

7. The reason this is newsworthy at all is precisely because it’s not a very common case, mainly because the debt in question was a commercial/business debt incurred by the sole proprietorship owned by this man’s late father.

   The question also arises as to how it is possible for an apparently insolvent sole trader to have outstanding claims of this magnitude that only come to light later, and whether there was not gross negligence on the part of the suppliers. The whole story sounds very strange.