Lawyers and notaries agree: "when making a will it is wise to leave specific assets to each child and the home to only one"

There are few situations as capable of breaking up a family as the distribution of an inheritance. Lawyers know it. Notaries know it. And those involved also know it, sometimes too late, and the always wise proverb already warned: "You know your brothers when there is an inheritance." They were warned.

According to data published by El Periódico, inheritance is the main source of legal conflict for 77% of Spaniards. Every year, tens of thousands of families have to decide what to do with an apartment inherited between several siblings, and of course, there are differences of opinion and from them the spark of discord is born. According to the latest data from the INE from March 2026, 47,474 homes transmitted by inheritance have been registered in Spain. Many of them do so under the ownership of several heirs.

Trendencias stated that the distribution of these indivisible assets is the main focus of conflicts between heirs, for this reason, lawyers, notaries and jurists recommend leaving the home to a single heir and compensating the rest to avoid joint ownership.

You inherit a floor and a problem

When two or more siblings inherit a home in equal shares, what the law calls community of property, or condominium, is born. In theory, everyone has the same rights to the good. In practice, no one can do anything without the others agreeing.

One proposes to sell, another wants to rent and a third would like to stay and live there. Since no decision can be made without unanimity of the owners, the most frequent result is a complete blockage. The apartment is frozen and the relationship between brothers deteriorates.

In an interview for Infobae, Antonio Martínez, founding partner of the Martínez Lafuente Abogados law firm, points it out without hesitation: "when making a will it is wise to leave specific assets to each child and leave the home to only one", ensuring that sharing properties ends up being "a source of problems between the family, unless there is a very close relationship between the siblings."

The most delicate scenario is when one of the heirs already lived in the property or moves in after death. The situation becomes what Martínez calls the "squatter heir": someone who occupies the property without compensating the rest and who is very difficult to remove without going to court.

What lawyers and notaries propose: assign, not share

Instead of making an "equal" distribution among the heirs, leading them to become co-owners of the same asset, lawyers and notaries agree that the best way to avoid these conflicts is to use current legislation, and assign each asset to a specific heir, compensating the rest with other assets or with money until the value is equal, reducing the risk of conflicts in the resolution of inheritances.

The most typical case in Spain is that of an estate made up of an apartment, money in the bank and some land in the town. With two children as heirs, the most practical thing is not to distribute everything 50/50 as one might think, but for one to keep 100% of the home and the other to be compensated with the money and the land, as long as the values ​​are equivalent. Spanish law establishes that the distribution be equitable, not that all heirs must be co-owners of all assets.

The notary María Cristina Clemente Buendía points out in one of her publications on social networks that this option, the most practical and the least known, also has a tax advantage: it saves the heirs a subsequent deed of condominium extinction so that they can decide who ultimately gets the property, with the corresponding property transfer tax that is generated.

And there is another common fear that the notary also clarifies: that monetary compensation between siblings generates additional taxes. A ruling by the TSJ of Madrid in September 2024 made it clear that this economic compensation, intended to offset the excess value between the property that one of the heirs was going to receive and the distribution that the rest was going to receive, does not represent an increase in the settlement of the inheritance tax.

The consensus among professionals in the sector about the convenience of this type of inheritance distribution is broad. Lawyers like Martínez, notaries like Clemente and specialized jurists like David Jiménez agree on the same premise: awarding specific assets to each heir to prevent them from having to share properties that they do not want to share.

What does the law say when the conflict has already arrived?

The will already exists, the assets are distributed equally and the brothers cannot agree. What options remain? The first is to negotiate. It seems obvious, but many times it does not happen because each party hopes that the other will give in.

If the dialogue does not work, the Civil Code offers the extinction of condominium (articles 400 and 1,062) because no heir is obliged to remain indefinitely in undivision. In this way, as David Jimenez explained in one of his videos, "one is awarded 100% and financially compensates the other."

The tax advantage of this 100% award is important since, while a conventional sale would be taxed between 6% and 10%, documented legal acts are around 0.5% and 1.5% depending on the autonomous community. Furthermore, as Jiménez points out, "there is no need to pay municipal capital gains when the condominium is terminated, unless there is an excess of allocation."

If the negotiation gets stuck, there is the figure of the accountant-partier: a lawyer or notary who resolves the distribution objectively and with a binding nature. Judicial action is the last resort, and the most expensive. In a judicial auction, Martínez warns, "the valuation of the property will always be much lower than the market value." Everyone loses something, but the conflict is unlocked.

Image | Unsplash (Jakub Żerdzicki, Vitaly Gariev)