The principle: Article 4 [European Regulation in matters of international successions]

The principle: Article 4

By the terms of recitals 23^[1] and 24^[2], Court jurisdiction and legislative competence coincide: the court having jurisdiction in any dispute relating to a succession is that of the Member State in which the deceased had his habitual residence at the time of his death.

Example :

Charlotte, an Austrian national, has lived in Toledo in Spain for 30 years. She died on 1st September 2015 during a holiday in France. A dispute arises between her three children, who are Austrian residents, as to how to share out her estate. A Spanish court will have jurisdiction.

Notes

Recital 23
- In view of the increasing mobility of citizens and in order to ensure the proper administration of justice within the Union and to ensure that a genuine connecting factor exists between the succession and the Member State in which jurisdiction is exercised, this Regulation should provide that the general connecting factor for the purposes of determining both jurisdiction and the applicable law should be the habitual residence of the deceased at the time of death. In order to determine the habitual residence, the authority dealing with the succession should make an overall assessment of the circumstances of the life of the deceased during the years preceding his death and at the time of his death, taking account of all relevant factual elements, in particular the duration and regularity of the deceased's presence in the State concerned and the conditions and reasons for that presence. The habitual residence thus determined should reveal a close and stable connection with the State concerned taking into account the specific aims of this Regulation.
Recital 24
- In certain cases, determining the deceased's habitual residence may prove complex. Such a case may arise, in particular, where the deceased for professional or economic reasons had gone to live abroad to work there, sometimes for a long time, but had maintained a close and stable connection with his State of origin. In such a case, the deceased could, depending on the circumstances of the case, be considered still to have his habitual residence in his State of origin in which the centre of interests of his family and his social life was located. Other complex cases may arise where the deceased lived in several States alternately or travelled from one State to another without settling permanently in any of them. If the deceased was a national of one of those States or had all his main assets in one of those States, his nationality or the location of those assets could be a special factor in the overall assessment of all the factual circumstances.