Inheritance in Honduras: who inherits, and in what order
Honduras has no separate “inheritance law”: it is all in the Código Civil. If the person left a will, the will governs. If they did not, the order set by Article 960 governs.
The order of succession when there is no will
| Order | Who inherits | Who falls in that group |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Descendants | Children and, by representation, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. |
| 2nd | The spouse or domestic partner | A de facto union must be duly legalised. |
| 3rd | Ascendants | Parents, grandparents. |
| 4th | Collateral relatives | Siblings, uncles and aunts, cousins. |
| 5th | The municipality | The municipality where the deceased had their last domicile. |
Source: Article 960 of the Código Civil.
It is an order of preference, not a simultaneous split: while anyone exists in one order, the following ones do not inherit. If there are children, the deceased’s parents do not inherit. Only in the absence of all heirs does the municipality inherit, under Article 973.
Beware of the old lists circulating online.
Article 960 was amended. In the version in force the spouse or domestic partner inherits in second place, immediately after descendants. Many notes and summaries found online reproduce the earlier wording, in which the spouse came as low as seventh, behind ascendants and collaterals. If what you are reading puts the spouse at the end, it is out of date.
In Honduras you can disinherit: testation is free
This surprises many people, because most countries in the region have a “legítima” requiring a share to be left to the children. Honduras does not. Article 979 says so directly:
“Testation is free. There are no forced allocations other than the maintenance owed by law to certain persons and the spousal portion.”
In other words: whoever makes a will may dispose of their property as they wish, with two limits — the maintenance owed by law to certain persons, and the spousal portion. The order in Article 960 only comes into play when there is no will.
What exactly is a will?
Under Article 980, a will is a more or less solemn act in which a person disposes of all or part of their property to take effect after their death, retaining the power to revoke it while alive. A will is never final until death: it can always be changed.
An estate can also be mixed. Article 931 clarifies that succession to a deceased person’s property may be partly testate and partly intestate — whatever the will did not cover is distributed under Article 960.
If a child died first: the right of representation
Article 961 defines representation as a legal fiction in which a person is deemed to take the place — and therefore the degree of kinship and the inheritance rights — that their father or mother would have had if unwilling or unable to succeed. In practice: if a child of the deceased has already died, that child’s own children (the grandchildren) inherit in their place.
The split changes according to how one inherits, and this is what causes the most confusion. It is set by Article 962:
| Form | How it is split |
|---|---|
| Per capita (por cabezas) | Those who inherit in their own right take between them, in equal shares, the portion the law assigns them. |
| Per stirpes (por estirpes) | Those who inherit by representation take between them all the portion that would have gone to the represented father or mother — however many of them there are. Three grandchildren representing one deceased child share that single portion. |
Source: Article 962 of the Código Civil.
A spouse separated through their own fault does not inherit
Article 971 provides that a judicially separated spouse shall have no share in the intestate estate of their husband or wife if they gave cause for the separation through their own fault.
Foreigners and inheritance
Article 977 calls foreigners to the intestate succession of a Honduran opened in Honduras in the same manner and under the same rules as Hondurans. Nationality excludes nobody from the order in Article 960.
Source
Código Civil de Honduras (Decreto No. 76-1906) — articles 931, 960, 961, 962, 971, 973, 977, 979 and 980.