Invoking the forced share (legitieme portie) yourself

The forced share (legitieme portie) is not a share of the estate that arises of itself on the day of death. Whoever wants it invokes it themselves. The statute says so, and the file follows that distinction. A child who has been disinherited does not automatically receive, in the file, the status of a person entitled to the forced share (legitieme portie) with a fixed amount. An invocation is added only once it has taken place. Until then the forced share is a possibility, not an entry in the division.

The invocation is in writing. A conversation at the kitchen table is not an invocation in the file. A document belongs with it: who writes, to whom, on what date, and what is being invoked. That document sits with the person involved. The date is the date on the document, not the date on which someone later enters it in the software. Without a document the field stays empty. Ervazo does not draft a letter and does not send it.

Art. 4:85 BW states a lapse period of five years after the death. Five years after the date of death can stand as a period in the file, beside the invocation. That period is something other than a period the heirs themselves set. The heirs may set a shorter reasonable period. Such a letter belongs separately, with its own date and its own documents. Two periods on one line make the file unusable.

No invocation after five years is a fact about the documents, not an automatic end that the software pronounces. The file shows the date of death, the five years, and whether there is a written invocation. It does not tick the forced share (legitieme portie) as lapsed on the day the calendar suggests that. The same goes for the shorter period set by the heirs. That period is recorded. Whether it was reasonable, and whether it affects the right, the program does not fill in.

Here the forced share (legitieme portie) remains a question about invoking it and about time. The amount and the assets are a different part. Ervazo orders the letters and the dates and does not calculate by way of advice. It files no tax return and makes no payment. A possibility without a letter remains a possibility. Without a date on paper there is not yet an invocation. The civil-law notary, the court or the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) decides the specific case.