• Germany has laws outling the process of distributing a deceased person's estate.map of germany image by Goran Bogicevic from Fotolia.com
  
  German succession law deals with the disposition of a person's estate after death. Most succession law is contained in the German Civil Code, the Burgerliches Gesetzbuch, or BGB, although international laws that apply to non-German citizens are contained in the Einfuhrungsgesetz zu Burgerlichen Gesetzbuch, or EGBGB. The BGB contains laws concerned with succession, including laws dealing with the disposition of a deceased person's estate if the person did not leave a will.
  
  

Citizenship of the Deceased

• If a person is domiciled in Germany, meaning that the person lives in Germany, and the person dies, then German private international law states that the succession law applying to the person's estate must be the succession law that applies in the person's country of citizenship. For example, if a U.S. citizen was a resident in Germany at the time of his death, German law, contained in Article 25 of the EGBGB, states that the succession law applicable in the person's country of citizenship should apply. In this case, U.S. laws concerning the deceased person's estate would determine the succession of the estate. However, German succession law may apply if a person's country of citizenship refers the matter of succession back to the laws in the country where the deceased person lived. So if a United Kingdom citizen was domiciled in Germany and died, the German laws of succession would apply because U.K. inheritance law refers succession back to the country where the person was domiciled at time of death.
  
  

Claims of a Surviving Spouse

• Section 1931 of the BCG lists the portion of a deceased person's estate that will be distributed to the person's surviving spouse if the person died intestate, meaning that the person died without leaving a will. If the deceased person has any surviving children or grandchildren, the surviving spouse will receive 25 percent of the deceased person's estate. If the deceased person has surviving parents, brothers or sisters or grandparents, the spouse of the deceased person receives 50 percent of the estate. The spouse will receive all of the estate only if the deceased person has no surviving children, grandchildren, parents or siblings.
  
  

Statutory Property Regime of Community Surplus

• German matrimonial property is classed under three regimes: the matrimonial surplus regime, the contractual property regime of separation of property, and the contractual regime of community property.
  
  If a married couple do not specify, in a marriage contract, that they want gains in the value of any property that they own individually to remain their own individual property, they live under the the "matrimonial surplus regime," also called the "community of accrued gains." Under this regime, the property of each spouse does not become the common property of the couple after marriage, and the property acquired by each spouse after marriage does not become common property. However, upon the death of one of the spouses, any increase in value of property acquired after marriage by both spouses is added together, and half of this joint increase is counted as part of the deceased person's estate, according to section 1363 of the BGB. If the deceased person died intestate and the couple were living under this regime, the surviving spouse would receive an increase of one-fourth over and above what he or she would have received, to compensate for the increase in the value of all marital property being divided and made part of the deceased person's estate.