Simplification Bill

Donated assets freed from inheritance: buyers do not risk restitution

Reform simplifying the circulation of donated goods definitively approved

by Angelo Busani

27 November 2025

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

The protection of the legitimate share
Absence and presumed death

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

At last, the circulation of donated assets that are alienated by the donee, when the donation proves to be detrimental to the legitimate share of an heir entitled to a legitimacy: this is what follows the final approval by the Chamber of Deputies of the simplification bill 2025 that had already been approved by the Senate.

The protection of the reserved share

The Civil Code necessarily reserves (i.e. without the possibility of exceptions) to certain close relatives of the de cuius (known as legitimaries or necessary heirs, namely the spouse, the civil partner, the descendants and, in the absence of the latter, the ascendants) a significant share of his or her estate, the so-called 'legitimacy', which the de cuius during his or her lifetime may not undermine either by making donations or by drafting a will in which the aforementioned relatives are pretermitted (i.e. forgotten) or even disinherited as a result of testamentary provisions attributing the inheritance to other persons.

Hitherto, if the legitimary who acted in reduction did not find the donee's assets sufficiently capacious to satisfy his right to obtain his legitimate share, and the donee had sold or otherwise disposed of the given property, the legitimate shareholder was entitled to bring an action (an 'action for restitution') against the natural or legal person who had become the owner of the donated property in order to have it returned or, alternatively, to be paid a sum of money equal to the amount required to satisfy the legitimate shareholder's claim to his or her inheritance.

The person who had become the owner of the property that had been the subject of a donation in the past suffered restitution even if he was completely unaware of the stipulation of the donation damaging the legitimacy. He had, indeed, recourse against the donee who had alienated the donated property, but his hope of recovering anything was practically nil if one considers that the prerequisite for an action for restitution was precisely that the legitimator had found the alienating donee's assets incapable of being returned.

For all these reasons, a donated property has hitherto been regarded by the market as scarcely marketable: whoever bought it ran the risk of becoming involved in ainheritance dispute between completely unrelated parties, even many years after the donation. The same situation for the bank that had registered a mortgage on a property that had been the object of a donation.

Simplification Act 2025 thus offers protection to the donee's successor in title (and, in general, the circulation of real estate and shares in the capital of companies) and diminishes the protection of the legitimators, who, if they suffer the donee's incapacity, find themselves in the same situation as an ordinary creditor who cannot satisfy his claims if the debtor is null and void. The only tempering occurs in the case of further circulation free of charge of the donated assets, since, according to the new rule, the free successor of the incapacitated donee 'is obliged to compensate the legitimates in money within the limits of the advantage obtained by him'.

Absence and Presumed Death

The Simplification Act 2025 innovates the Civil Code on the subject of aabsence and presumed death, modifying rules that found their rationale in 1942, when the circulation of news and systems for finding people were drastically different:

- absence may be declared once a year has elapsed (instead of the current two-year period) from the date on which the missing person was last known;

- presumed death may be declared once five years have elapsed (instead of the current ten-year period) from the date on which the absent person was last known to be alive.