What: Conference:
Inheritance, patrimonial rights and blended
families: confronting past and present / L’héritage et les droits patrimoniaux dans la famille recomposée, entre histoire et futur /
Zakelijke rechten en erven in het nieuw samengesteld gezin, in heden en verleden
Where: Rubenszaal, Paleis der Academiën (Academy Palace), Hertogsstraat 1, B-1000 Brussel(s)
When: 23 November 2012
Please register through blendedfamilies2012@gmail.com. Admission is free.
Theme
Nowadays
the newly composed or blended family is a widespread phenomenon. Nonetheless,
it still defies jurists, and particularly with regard to the legal relationship
between children from a former relationship on the one hand side, and the new
partner of their parent and his/her siblings on the other. The transition from
(parts of) an estate from one family to the next and the patrimonial rights of
members of former families vis-à-vis those of new ones, are crucial issues.
Since 1981, in Belgium, the
inheritance estate, including the personal properties and the part of the
matrimonial community pertaining to the deceased, is not distributed and
remains under usufruct for the benefit of the surviving spouse if there are
children. Even in a case of a subsequent remarriage, these descendants remain
entitled so-called ‘nude’ proprietors of the inheritance estate and they can
query for a transformation of usufruct into ‘full’ ownership for parts of the
inheritance. However, these rules do not apply in case of divorce or when another
relationship than marriage or formal partnership between partners, having
children, is ended and their communal properties are divided. Contractual
arrangements often provide solutions. Nonetheless questions remain, for example
as to whether it is feasible to grant the surviving spouse extensive rights of
usufruct as a principle by law, and whether more legal rights should be given
to descendants in this respect.
There are historical parallels.
Before the age of codifications of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, in the Low Countries and elsewhere, rules protected children out of
a first marriage that had ended because of the death of one of the spouses. In
case of remarriage of their parent, it was assured that their part in the
estate – which the surviving parent could keep in many cases – remained intact.
In Eastern Brabant, the droit de
dévolution applied, which was strict in the sense that it froze the
situation at the death of a parent. In Flanders, rights of the widow or widower
in this respect were usually more limited. In both areas, in the middle ages and early
modern period, the fate of immovable property was very important: it often came
from the kin, and under some circumstances it was due to return to the family
from which it had come.
The colloquium will confront
historical examples and rules with those that are being applied today. Legal
historians will detail the context in which the mentioned norms existed and
their consequences, for different places in continental Western Europe. Lawyers
specializing in positive matrimonial property law, inheritance law and family
law will shed light on the contents and lacunae in contemporary law and legal practice
in Belgium and the Netherlands. The colloquium seeks to promote further
research into these matters. It equally aims at reviving the tradition of
legal-historical research into old family law (in the broad sense), which in
the 1960s was vibrant at the Vrije
Universiteit Brussel, under the impetus of the late professor John
Gilissen.
PROGRAM:
9.00
Onthaal/Registration/Accueil
9.15-9.30
Prof. Dave De ruysscher (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, FWO-Vlaanderen) – Verwelkoming
en inleiding/Welcome and General Introduction/Introduction générale
9.30-10.15
Prof. Dirk Heirbaut (Universiteit Gent) – “Family Above
All? The 'Family' as a Central Concept in Flemish feudal law”
10.15-10.30
Pauze/Pause
10.30-11.15
Prof. Virginie Lemonnier-Lesage (Université de Rouen), “Le sort des enfants du
premier lit en cas de remariage dans l'ancien droit français”
11.15-12.00
Dr Ellinor Forster (Universität Innsbruck), “Remarrying in Eighteenth- and
Nineteenth-Century Austria – With All Impacts on Children's Rights”
12.00-13.30
Lunch/Déjeuner
13.30-14.15 Prof. Sebastiaan Roes
(Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen), "Het nieuw samengestelde gezin in de
Noordelijke Nederlanden ten tijde van de Republiek. Van Drentse en Roermondse
eenkindschappen en soortgelijke fenomenen"
14.15-15 Dr
Emese von Boné (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam), “Vermogenskwesties in nieuw
samengestelde gezinnen voor de familieraad (Nederland, 1811-1838)”
15-15.30 Pauze/Pause
15.30-16.15 Prof. Helène Casman
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel), “Familles recomposées: comment s'adapte le
droit belge des régimes matrimoniaux et des successions?”
16.15-17 Prof. Barbara Reinhartz
(Universiteit van Amsterdam), “From Traditional
Families to Informal Families to Patchwork Families: Can Dutch Succession Law
Keep Up With the Changes in Society?”
17-17.30
Conclusie/Conclusion
To download the program, click here
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