This article is general legal information in the Philippine context.

1) Governing law and the two big rules

Inheritance (succession) in the Philippines is mainly governed by the Civil Code provisions on Succession, and is implemented in real life through (a) the Family Code rules on property relations of spouses, (b) the Rules of Court on estate settlement (judicial and extrajudicial), and (c) tax and transfer rules (estate tax, registries, banks, corporate transfer formalities). For Muslim Filipinos, P.D. 1083 (Code of Muslim Personal Laws) may apply to succession in appropriate cases.

Two controlling principles explain most outcomes:

Compulsory heirs have protected minimum shares (legitimes). A will cannot lawfully reduce these below the minimum, except through valid disinheritance for a legal cause and with strict requirements.
No distribution until obligations are dealt with. The estate must address settlement expenses, enforceable debts/claims, and practical gatekeepers (especially taxes and clearances) before heirs can fully receive and register property.

2) Threshold question: what exactly is “the estate”?

A frequent mistake is treating the couple’s entire property as the decedent’s estate. Philippine settlement requires separating:

(A) The surviving spouse’s own property share arising from the marriage property regime (not inheritance), and
(B) The decedent’s hereditary estate (what can be inherited).

2.1 Marital property regime first: ACP vs CPG (and why it changes everything)

Upon death, the community/conjugal partnership is dissolved and liquidated:

Under Absolute Community of Property (ACP) (common default for many marriages without a prenuptial agreement after the Family Code), much of what the spouses own is part of the community, subject to exclusions.
Under Conjugal Partnership of Gains (CPG) (common in many earlier marriages and some settlements), the conjugal “gains” during marriage are shared, while exclusive properties remain separate.

Practical effect: The heirs inherit only from the decedent’s net hereditary estate—generally the decedent’s share in the community/conjugal net assets plus the decedent’s exclusive properties, minus obligations chargeable to the estate.

2.2 What usually does not go through inheritance (common carve-outs)

Even when someone dies, certain assets may transfer outside the estate settlement framework depending on their nature and documentation, for example:

Life insurance proceeds payable to a designated beneficiary (often treated as payable directly, subject to special legal rules and exceptional cases).
Some benefits or accounts with clear beneficiary designations or special statutory schemes.
Property that is not actually owned by the decedent (e.g., held in trust for another, or corporate assets owned by a corporation rather than the shareholder).

These require careful classification because they can drastically affect the “true estate” value.

3) Core terminology (what the law means by “succession”)

Succession: transfer by death of property, rights, and obligations not extinguished by death.
Hereditary estate: what is transmissible net of obligations, and subject to legitime rules and reductions.
Heirs: succeed to a fractional portion of the inheritance.
Legatees/devisees: receive specific personal property (legacy) or real property (devise) designated in a will.
Testate: governed by a valid will (after probate).
Intestate: governed by law when there is no will, the will is ineffective, or parts are not disposed.
Mixed: partly by will, partly by intestacy.

4) Who inherits: compulsory heirs, other heirs, and capacity to inherit

4.1 Compulsory heirs (the protected group)

Compulsory heirs are entitled to legitime, a minimum share reserved by law. In mainstream Civil Code succession, the usual compulsory heirs are:

Legitimate children and descendants
Legitimate parents and ascendants (only if there are no legitimate children/descendants)
Surviving spouse
Illegitimate children (once filiation is legally established)

(Adopted children are generally treated as legitimate children of the adopter for succession purposes.)

4.2 Capacity to inherit: disqualification happens in two main ways

Disinheritance: must be in a will, for a legal cause, and must meet strict requirements; otherwise it fails and the compulsory heir’s rights revive.
Unworthiness (incapacity by operation of law): certain serious acts against the decedent or the integrity of the will (and other legally specified grounds) can bar inheritance even without a will.

5) Intestate succession (no will / will ineffective): order and typical shares

Intestacy follows statutory order. The most practical way to understand it is: descendants exclude ascendants, and close family generally excludes more distant relatives, with the surviving spouse receiving a legally defined share depending on who else exists.

5.1 Typical patterns people actually encounter

Below are common high-frequency intestate patterns (assuming no unusual disqualifications and filiation is established):

A) Legitimate children only

Estate divided equally among legitimate children (with representation when applicable).

B) Legitimate children + surviving spouse

Spouse shares with legitimate children and typically receives a share equal to one legitimate child.

C) Legitimate children + illegitimate children

Illegitimate children inherit with legitimate children, with the statutory ratio commonly expressed as each illegitimate child gets one-half of a legitimate child’s share.

D) Legitimate children + surviving spouse + illegitimate children

All three groups may concur. Shares are computed by applying the statutory ratios (spouse commonly treated as equal to one legitimate child in intestacy; illegitimate children commonly at one-half of a legitimate child), then allocating the whole estate accordingly.

E) No descendants, but legitimate parents/ascendants exist

Ascendants inherit (with spouse’s share if spouse exists).

F) Legitimate parents/ascendants + surviving spouse

Parents/ascendants and spouse share the estate (a common statutory outcome is a half-and-half division between the parental line and the spouse in intestacy).

G) Illegitimate children only

Illegitimate children inherit the entire estate equally.

H) Illegitimate children + surviving spouse (no legitimate children)

A commonly applied statutory outcome is illegitimate children take two-thirds, and spouse takes one-third.

I) Surviving spouse only

Spouse inherits the entire estate.

J) Surviving spouse + collaterals (siblings/nieces/nephews), with no descendants/ascendants/illegitimate children

A common statutory outcome is spouse gets one-half, and collaterals get one-half.

K) Collaterals only

Distribution follows degree rules, including rules on full-blood vs half-blood siblings and limited representation by nieces/nephews.

6) Three “R” concepts that control branch shares: representation, transmission, and accretion

6.1 Representation (per stirpes)

Representation lets a descendant inherit in place of an heir who cannot inherit (commonly because they predeceased the decedent). It is strongest in the direct descending line and is limited in the collateral line (commonly for children of siblings in appropriate cases).

Per stirpes means the “branch” takes the share that would have gone to the represented heir, then divides within the branch.

6.2 Right of transmission

If an heir survives the decedent but dies before accepting or repudiating the inheritance, the heir’s own heirs may inherit the right to accept the original inheritance. This is different from representation.

6.3 Accretion

Accretion increases the shares of others when a share cannot be taken and the law or will calls for it to “accrete” to co-heirs/co-legatees, subject to requisites.

7) The “iron curtain” rule (legitimate vs illegitimate family lines)

A distinctive Civil Code doctrine is the bar to intestate succession between legitimate and illegitimate relatives beyond the parent-child relationship, often referred to as the “iron curtain”:

Illegitimate children are barred from inheriting by intestacy from the legitimate relatives of their parent, and
Legitimate relatives are barred from inheriting by intestacy from illegitimate children,

while inheritance between parent and child remains recognized once filiation is established. This doctrine frequently drives outcomes in blended-family estates.

8) Wills (testate succession): what a will can do, and what it cannot

8.1 Probate is the gateway

A will generally takes effect only after probate (court allowance). Probate focuses primarily on due execution and formal validity, with property-ownership disputes often handled in the broader settlement proceedings.

8.2 Types of wills people actually use

Notarial (ordinary) will: executed with strict formalities, witnesses, and notarization requirements.
Holographic will: entirely handwritten, dated, and signed by the testator, with distinct proof requirements.

8.3 The hard limit: legitime

A will can distribute:

the free portion, and
any additional allocations consistent with compulsory heirs’ legitimes.

If provisions or lifetime donations impair legitime, remedies include reduction of inofficious dispositions and donations.

9) Legitime and the free portion: how distribution is computed (the settlement math)

9.1 The standard computation flow (practical method)

In real estate practice and litigation, computations usually follow this sequence:

Identify the hereditary estate: classify assets, liquidate the marital property regime, then subtract enforceable obligations and settlement charges.
Account for certain lifetime transfers: donations/advances may be brought into the computation through collation and may be reducible if they impair legitime.
Identify compulsory heirs and their concurrence pattern.
Compute legitimes and determine the free portion.
Apply reductions if wills/donations exceed what the decedent could freely dispose.

9.2 Collation and reduction (why lifetime gifts come back)

Collation: lifetime gifts to compulsory heirs may be treated as advances and accounted for in partition to preserve equality and protect legitime.
Reduction: donations and testamentary dispositions that exceed the free portion and impair legitime may be reduced.

These doctrines are central where, for example, one child received major real property during the parent’s lifetime or where assets were moved shortly before death.

10) Preterition (total omission of a compulsory heir in the direct line)

Preterition occurs when a compulsory heir in the direct line is totally omitted from the will. It can trigger severe effects—often the failure of the institution of heirs (in whole or in part) and partial intestacy—while some legacies/devices may survive if compatible with legitime rules.

11) Other technical doctrines that can decide cases

11.1 Reserva troncal (reservable property)

This rule can require certain property that moved by gratuitous title within a family line to be “reserved” for specific relatives under defined conditions. It is highly technical but can matter for long-held land and intergenerational property.

11.2 Foreign element cases (conflict of laws)

As a general conflict principle, the national law of the decedent often governs intrinsic succession questions (who inherits, proportions, intrinsic validity), while Philippine procedural steps, taxation, and registration rules still apply to property situated or processed in the Philippines. Constitutional restrictions on land ownership can intersect with inheritance outcomes, particularly in cross-border families.

11.3 Adoption, legitimation, and proof of filiation

Inheritance rights commonly rise or fall on whether filiation is legally established (recognition, legitimation where applicable, adoption documents), which dictates whether someone is a compulsory heir and what share system applies.

12) How heirs actually receive property: settlement routes (procedure controls reality)

Inheritance rights must be converted into registrable ownership. Philippine practice typically uses:

12.1 Extrajudicial settlement (Rule 74)

Commonly used when:

there is no will, and
there are no unsettled debts/claims, and
the heirs are all of age (or properly represented).

Core components often include:

a Deed of Extrajudicial Settlement (multiple heirs) or Affidavit of Self-Adjudication (sole heir),
publication in a newspaper of general circulation (customarily once a week for three consecutive weeks),
registration of the settlement instrument and compliance with registry/bank requirements,
awareness of creditor protection mechanisms (including the practical risk that undisclosed debts or undisclosed heirs can later challenge transfers).

12.2 Judicial settlement (testate or intestate)

Used when:

there is a will (probate required),
there are disputes among heirs,
creditors’ claims and complex assets require court supervision,
minors/incapacitated heirs or contested filiation issues make extrajudicial settlement risky.

Judicial settlement commonly involves:

appointment of an executor/administrator,
inventory and appraisal,
notice to creditors and payment of claims,
court approval of partition/distribution.

12.3 Co-ownership before partition

Before partition, heirs generally hold the estate in co-ownership (subject to administration). This means:

no heir owns a specific property item by title until partition (absent valid prior allocation),
heirs may transfer/assign hereditary rights, but that does not automatically transfer title to specific estate properties.

13) Tax and transfer formalities (why estates get “stuck” even when heirs agree)

Even when everyone agrees on shares, transfers often cannot be completed without:

estate tax compliance and required clearances/certificates for transfer,
local transfer tax payments where applicable,
Registry of Deeds processing for real property,
bank release requirements for deposits,
corporate book transfers for shares.

These are practical gatekeepers: they don’t change who the heirs are, but they often determine whether distribution can be implemented.

14) Common dispute triggers (where litigation usually starts)

Filiation disputes (recognition, illegitimacy claims, late-appearing heirs).
Second-family conflicts (preterition, disinheritance challenges, competing claimants).
Lifetime transfers alleged to defeat legitime (collation/reduction).
Confusion between marital property shares and inheritance shares.
Improper extrajudicial settlement (missing heirs, defective publication, unresolved debts).
Title and registration defects (unregistered land, outdated titles, missing corporate documents).
Iron curtain issues affecting extended family claims.

15) Practical takeaway

Philippine inheritance outcomes are determined by four sequential filters:

Classify property correctly (marital regime liquidation + exclusive property).
Identify heirs correctly (including proof of filiation and disqualifications).
Apply succession rules correctly (intestacy or probate + legitime constraints).
Implement correctly (settlement procedure + taxes + registries/banks).