El orden sucesorio "ab intestato"de Roma al derecho contemporáneo

Abstract

Intestate (ab intestato) succession takes place when there is no will, when it has been revoked, or declared null and void, or in cases where the testamentary heir has declined the inheritance. Under such circumstances, it is necessary to supplant the will of the testator (voluntas testatoris), which is what the Law and the legislator do, establishing an order of succession in an attempt to substitute the absence of a will of the deceased, while trying in so far as may be possible to approximate what might have been his last will and testament. That being so, the aforementioned intestate succession, also referred to as legitimate succession, underwent a profound transformation throughout its history, a consequence of the change from agnatic bloodlines, -a parental criterion used under Roman civil law (ius civile) during some time for hereditary vocation-, to cognate kinship, the blood relative, which was finally imposed in Justinian law, thereby establishing a new system of intestate hereditary succession, the fundamental lines of which have been passed down into modern legislation.