The legacy of choice

A legacy of choice (keuzelegaat) is a clause in a will. The deed lets someone choose a particular asset. It is not the statutory distribution and not an automatic allocation of the whole estate inventory. In the file you write who may choose, from which assets, and the sentence that says so. You do not yourself choose the house or the car because that is convenient for the family. As long as there is no written choice, the choice stays open. The asset simply remains in the estate inventory, with a note that the legacy of choice may affect this asset. Ervazo does not exercise the choice.

Once the choice has been made in writing, you record that choice. The date of the document, the name of the person who chooses, and the asset that has been designated. A conversation does not count here as the choice that was made. Keep the paper with the legacy. You can then note against that asset that it has been chosen, with that paper as the source. You do not strike the other assets from the estate inventory because one of them has been chosen. Only the chosen asset receives this label. The rest follows the deed and the statute, not the choice that was not made.

The value on the day of death and the taking over later are two figures. The first belongs with the reference date of the estate. The second is what happens when someone in fact receives the asset, on a later day, sometimes against a set-off that the deed names. You do not put those two in one field. A valuation or a bank document of the day of death remains the source of the first value. A document about the transfer, or the agreement about the taking over, is the source of the second. If either is missing, that field stays empty. Ervazo does not average them into one amount.

Until the choice is on paper, there is no chosen asset. An oral preference remains a note and does not become a choice. Until the two values stand apart from each other, the entry is not finished. The value on the day of death gets a source of its own. The deed remains the source of what may be chosen. Ervazo does not make the legacy and does not fill in the choice.