forced heir

A forced share (or legitime) can often only be decreased on account of some very specific misconduct by the forced heir.

Formerly, in Louisiana the legitime operated to prevent a parent from wholly disinheriting his children, who were and are still called forced heirs.

In civil law countries, the doctrine of legitime plays a similar role, and makes the lineal descendants of the dead person forced heirs.

Forced heirs may demand collation, whereby certain gifts received by any successor in the three years before the death of the parent may be subtracted from their share.

Takers in the forced estate are known as forced heirs (Germ Pflichtteilserben, Noterben, Fr réservataires, It legittimari, Sp herederos forzosos).

If a person who would have otherwise qualified as a forced heir dies before the parent, rights to that share may pass to that person's children, although how that share is distributed among them if one or more is an interdict remains unsettled law.

Louisiana does not have a forced heirship provision for spouses, however at death the spouse's interest in any community property is converted to his or her separate property; and a usufruct is granted over the remaining community (with the forced heirs as naked owners of their respective shares).