Find out up to what amount an heir is liable for the deceased's debts, how the notary ascertains and deals with contested creditors' claims, and why a creditor must pursue their claim by an action for payment, not a declaratory action.
Along with the assets, the deceased's debts also pass to the heirs. In addition, the heirs incur a separate obligation to bear the reasonable costs of the funeral. The extent of this liability, however, is not unlimited.
Under § 470 of the Slovak Civil Code, an heir is liable for the deceased's debts only up to the value of the inheritance acquired – this is therefore limited liability. However, the heir is liable for satisfying the deceased's creditors not only with the property they inherited but also with their own property, since the inherited property and the heir's own property merge in the course of succession.
Exceptionally, the deceased's debts are paid exclusively out of the property belonging to the estate – for example, where an estate of negligible value is released to the person who arranged the deceased's funeral, or where the creditors and the heirs agree to surrender an over-indebted estate in payment of the debts, or in the course of liquidation of the estate.
In the first phase of the inheritance proceedings, the notary ascertains not only the circle of heirs but also the deceased's property, in cooperation with the parties to the proceedings and also through third parties and requests to the competent authorities. The notary ascertains the deceased's debts primarily by inspecting public registers – for example, part "C" of the title deed (list vlastníctva) (encumbrances), the Central Securities Depository, the Notarial Central Register of Charges, the Commercial Register and others.
If even a single heir so requests, the notary must call upon the creditors (so-called convocation) to notify him of their claims within a period of at least one month. The notary publishes this call on the court's official notice board, on the court's website and on the website of the Chamber of Notaries of the Slovak Republic. If a creditor does not assert their claim within this period, their right is not thereby extinguished – this is merely a procedure for ascertaining debts, not a time limit whose expiry would bar the claim. Moreover, a creditor may register in the inheritance proceedings even without the notary publishing the call – it is enough that they learn of their debtor's death.
Common debts include, for example, arrears of taxes, of health or social insurance contributions, or obligations under a credit facility or loan.
The heirs' consent is required for a creditor's claim to be included in the liabilities of the estate. If the heirs do not acknowledge the debt – that is, they do not agree to its inclusion in the list of liabilities – it is a so-called contested debt.
A dispute in the true sense exists where the parties to the proceedings make conflicting assertions that are decisive for the conclusion whether the debt really was the deceased's. If the disagreement concerns only circumstances that are not legally material, there is no dispute over a liability of the estate.
If the parties merely hold differing views on whether the debt was the deceased's, the notary must decide the matter. In other cases, under § 198 of the Slovak Code of Civil Non-Contentious Procedure, the notary merely records that the claim is contested and disregards it when calculating the net value of the estate.
A creditor whose claim was not included in the estate may pursue their claim outside the inheritance proceedings by a separate action for payment under § 137(a) of the Slovak Code of Civil Contentious Procedure. Since this is not a dispute arising out of the inheritance proceedings, the notary does not refer the creditor to bring an action within a set time limit (as is the case in a dispute over the right of inheritance under § 194 of the Slovak Code of Civil Non-Contentious Procedure) – the creditor may therefore do so at any time, without needing to wait for the notary.
If the creditor's claim has been decided with final effect before the inheritance proceedings are concluded, the notary is obliged to take that decision into account and duly include the claim in the inventory of the estate's liabilities.
A creditor of the deceased must seek protection of their claim by a standard action for performance of an obligation (§ 137(a) of the Slovak Code of Civil Contentious Procedure), not by a declaratory action (§ 137(c) of the Slovak Code of Civil Contentious Procedure) – the latter is not capable of resolving the dispute between the parties definitively. The position of the creditor as claimant is not uncertain, and the use of a declaratory action would only lead to an unnecessary multiplication of disputes.
Nor does the argument hold that the creditor's urgent legal interest in a determination follows directly from § 212(1) of the Slovak Code of Civil Non-Contentious Procedure. A creditor of the deceased is a party to the inheritance proceedings only in precisely defined cases (§ 168 of the Slovak Code of Civil Non-Contentious Procedure):
Outside these cases, the creditor is not a party to the inheritance proceedings, but may assert their right by a separate action before the court.
Since an heir is liable for the deceased's debts only up to the value of the inheritance acquired, it may happen in practice that some creditors' claims are not satisfied at all, or not in full. To the extent of the unsatisfied part of the claim, the heir does not have the position of the deceased's procedural successor – the court should therefore dismiss the action in that part. If the heir acquired the deceased's entire property and used all of it to pay preferential claims (for example, secured obligations), they do not have the position of a procedural successor at all, and therefore cannot have standing to be sued in further disputes over the remaining debts.
Are the heirs refusing to acknowledge your claim against the deceased, or are you, as an heir, facing an unacknowledged debt? We will assess your situation and prepare an action to assert or defend your claim.
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