Specialists from St Petersburg University: notaries need guidance on international inheritance

The event was attended by more than 70 specialists from Russia and Belarus, including the presidents of notary chambers in Belarus, St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, and members of the Committee on International Cooperation of the Federal Chamber of Notaries.

Innokentii Karandashov, Associate Professor in the Department of International Law at St Petersburg University, speaking at the meeting, explained the legal logic to be followed when registering inheritance rights in cases where the heirs or the inherited property are located in different states. Mariia Terekhova, President of the Notary Chamber of St Petersburg, called for a clear delineation between applying the law and helping the heir to exercise his/her inheritance rights.

In April 2022, St Petersburg University and the Chamber of Notaries of the Republic of Belarus signed a cooperation agreement to promote research-based approaches to the legal regulation and administration of notary practice in Russia and Belarus.

The discussion addressed one of the most controversial issues of international succession − the possibility of forming several autonomous inheritance assets when the inherited property is subject to the law of different states.

Division of the inherited assets into autonomous parts proceeds from the fact that the legal scope of a notarial deed cannot extend beyond the limits of its jurisdiction. However, this is not so. For example, a notary may issue a certificate to confirm the right to assets located outside the Russian Federation.

Innokentii Karandashov, Associate Professor in the Department of International Law at St Petersburg University

The participants took a special interest in the issues of inheriting bank accounts. Elena Metelskaia, Chairperson of the Methodology Committee of the Belarusian Chamber of Notaries, emphasised the importance of the problem, raised by the Chamber of Notaries of Belarus and the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus. Natalia Rasskazova, Head of the Department of Notaries at St Petersburg University, applied the principle of universal succession which, in her opinion, pre-determines any decision in the area of succession law, namely that only the property that belonged to the testator at the time of opening the inheritance shall form part of the inherited assets. Anything that happens to money after a client’s death concerns the assets inherited by the heirs and not inheritance as such. Natalia Rasskazova also suggested that there should be a distinction between the order of inheritance of funds in savings and current accounts.

Summing up the results of the round table, participants thanked the experts from St Petersburg University and expressed hope for further cooperation under the Agreement and for strengthening relations between qualified Russian and Belarusian specialists in the field of notarial services.