The waiver of succession in Bulgaria

According to Article 52 of Bulgarian Inheritance Act, the person entitled to inherit may waive his hereditary right. To do so, he must submit a unilateral, explicit declaration of intent to the court. The declaration of waiver must be in registered into the book of the court and in practice the court does require that the declaration has been signed before a notary public. Otherwise, the declaration is void and the heir is considered to have accepted the succession. Legally incompetent persons may not waive an inheritance. The waiver of inheritance is valid with the registration into the book of the court. If in the period between the declaration of intent and the registration into the book of the court there was an acceptance, the waiver shall be considered void.

The heir who waives the inheritance is freed from all debts of his testator.

According to Article 53 of the Bulgarian Inheritance Act, the shares of the heirs are increased by the share of the waiving one. The same applies to the shares of a person that lost his entitlement to inherit.

The regulation of Article 53 does not apply to everyone but only to the heirs of the same group (see intestate succession) and beneficiaries of the Last Will but are not the legal successors of the deceased. The increase of the inheritance is indispensable. According to Article 22 (1) of the inheritance law, the legatee, who should also inherit by intestate succession, is entitled to acquire the devise even if he waived the succession as a whole.