Libro Tercero · Título II Capítulo I. Disposiciones generales

Every person with civil capacity may dispose of their property by means of a will in favor of anyone who has no incapacity or legal prohibition to inherit.

The testator may recommend to a third party the distribution of inheritances or legacies that he may leave for designated persons or objects.

The will is a purely personal act of a revocable nature, by which a person disposes of all or part of their property, for after their death.

The liberty to make a will has as its only limit the right that certain persons have to be supported.

The reciprocal succession contract between spouses or any other persons is prohibited; and a will executed by virtue of contract is void.

Two or more persons are prohibited from executing a will in the same act.

The memoranda or papers to which the testator refers in the will shall not be considered as part thereof, even if the testator so orders.

Every testamentary disposition shall be understood in the literal sense of its words, unless it clearly appears that the intent of the testator was otherwise. The interpretation of the will shall not be made by taking only isolated words or phrases, but the totality of the declaration of intent.

The posthumous child or the child born after the will was made, if they have not been expressly disinherited and the testator has distributed his property unequally among the children, shall be entitled to a share of the inheritance equivalent to the portion that would correspond to them if the entire inheritance had been divided into equal parts.

If the testamentary heirs are not children of the testator, the posthumous child and the child born after the will was made who has not been expressly disinherited shall be entitled to fifty percent of the inheritance. In both cases the hereditary portion corresponding to the posthumous child or to the child born after the will was made shall be deducted pro rata from the portions corresponding to the testamentary heirs. The pretermitted child is deemed disinherited.

The disposition drafted in favor of relatives of the testator, in general and indeterminate form, is deemed made only in favor of the heirs called to the succession.

Donations by reason of death are governed by the same provisions of wills on legacies.

In the trust instituted by will, the credit institution acting as fiduciary shall not have the status of heir.

The following are incapable of making a will.

1°.A person who is under interdiction;

2°.The deaf-mute person and the person who has lost the use of speech, when they cannot make themselves understood in writing; and,

3°.A person who, without being under interdiction, does not enjoy his intellectual and volitional faculties, for any cause, at the time of making the will.

The person instituted by error is neither heir nor legatee, when such error relates to the designated person.

The omission of the institution of heir in a will does not annul the provisions it contains.

The property, rights and actions that the testator who omitted the institution of heir did not dispose of pass to his legal heirs.

Article 948. The testator who names two or more persons as his heirs shall indicate the portion of the inheritance allocated to each of them. If he does not do so, the right of all the heirs to the hereditary property shall be equal.

When the portions assigned by the testator to their heirs, taken together, exceed the amount of the hereditary mass, they shall be reduced pro rata.

If the testator specifies all the portions he leaves to his heirs, and something remains without determined application, this part shall correspond to the legal heirs.

Where a determined part of the inheritance is designated in the will for one or more heirs, without indicating that of their co-heirs, the latter shall distribute with equality what remains of the inheritance, after deducting what was specially allocated.

Except as provided by the testator, the property awarded by will, whether by inheritance or by legacies that become vacant due to the death of the awardees before the testator, shall pass by right of representation to those determined by law, if they are relatives of his.

If the vacancy should arise from non-acceptance of the inheritance and there is no right of representation, the property shall pass to the universal testamentary heir; failing that, it shall be adjudicated to the persons entitled to the intestate inheritance, in accordance with the law, provided that they have not been expressly disinherited by the testator.