Estate Clearance

When may the clearance start?

The decisive point: not immediately. After a death, the estate passes as a whole to the community of heirs (Erbengemeinschaft), and they can only dispose of it jointly. As long as it is not established who the heirs are — or as long as not all of them have consented — no single person may have the estate cleared.

There is also the deadline for disclaiming the inheritance. In Switzerland heirs have three months to renounce an estate (Ausschlagung der Erbschaft). Anyone who clears the estate and disposes of items before that period has expired may be deemed to have tacitly accepted the inheritance — including any debts. Where the estate is over-indebted, that is a serious risk.

What has to be secured before the clearance

Before every estate clearance, a systematic search should be made for: the will and any testamentary dispositions, bank and insurance papers, contracts, land register extracts, tax records, keys, identity documents, cash, jewellery and valuables, and photographs and personal documents.

Experience shows these things are not where you would expect them. Cash turns up inside books, wills in drawers between invoices, jewellery in kitchen tins. We therefore sort through systematically, room by room, instead of only checking the obvious places.

The tenancy agreement continues to run

The tenancy does not end automatically with the death. It passes to the heirs, who can terminate it on the next permitted date while observing the statutory notice period. Until it ends, the rent keeps running — a good reason not to postpone the clearance unnecessarily once the succession situation is clear.