Can a widower claim an inheritance?

Questioner

Our parents have a joint will. In the year 2000 our father died. We (8 children) gave our inheritance to our mother. in the year 2005 our sister died. She was married and the marriage was childless. In the year 2022 our mother passed away. ee My brothers and sisters are of the opinion that the son-in-law/widower is equal to our 7 heirs and has a right to 1/8 of our mother's inheritance. The son-in-law/widower is not mentioned in the will, so not even as an heir. I am of the opinion that the widower has no claim to our mother's inheritance. How is this regulated in Dutch law?

Lawyer

Your question is whether the widower of your pre-deceased (before her mother) sister will replace that pre-deceased sister as heir, since the mother's will does not appoint that widower as the mother's heir. The answer is that the widower has not become an heir. He does not take the place of his deceased wife. Substitution only occurs in the case of a will if it is stipulated in that will and then only in favor of the descendants of your deceased sister, not in favor of the man to whom she was married. If there were no will, the widower would not have become an heir. Then there is substitution, but only in favor of descendants, not in favor of a partner. The widower may well have rights from the father's inheritance. After all, he had died when his sister was still alive. The rights from the father's estate went to your then living sister. The question is whether the rights from the father's inheritance were definitively transferred to the mother. There is often an arrangement whereby the children leave the mother in the possessions until the mother herself has died. In that case, the widower may still be able to claim the rights of his wife in her share of the father's inheritance.