Undoing the statutory division

The statutory division can be undone. Art. 4:18 BW names two things for that: a period of three months and a notarial deed. In the file that period starts on the date of death. Three months later stands as the last day for that deed, not as a general deadline for the whole estate. The day itself is a calculation on the calendar. Its meaning stays limited to this one possibility and does not extend to the rest of the file.

Without a notarial deed the division is not undone in the file. An email, a family message or a note from a conversation is not that deed. The file asks for the document itself: the deed, the date it was executed, and the civil-law notary who drew it up. If the document is there, the source is the deed and not art. 4:13 BW as the sole rule of division. If the document is not there, the statutory division remains the working rule of the file.

After a deed that undoes the division, the earlier allocation is no longer correct as the final picture. The assets then no longer stand, as a matter of course, with the surviving spouse or registered partner alone. The children's monetary claims then no longer stand as the outcome of art. 4:13 BW. The file does keep the old rule, with the date on which it applied, and places the deed beside it as a new fact. Throwing the history away makes the timeline unreadable. Leaving two rules mixed together without a date does that too.

The three months are not a period for winding up the estate. Nor are they a period for choosing between unconditional acceptance, acceptance under the benefit of inventory, or renunciation. Those subjects have their own place. In this part of the file the only question is whether the statutory division has been undone by a notarial deed. A task with a different name should not be stuck onto this date merely because three months is a round number.

Ervazo does not draw up the deed and does not count the three months in order to reach a legal judgment. The program records the date of death, the deed, and the absence of a deed. If the document is missing after the period, that remains a fact in the file, not a pronouncement that no one can raise anything anymore. The calendar date remains a guide line beside the documents. The civil-law notary, the court or the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) decides the specific case.