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The so-called “de facto family,” a socially relevant and widespread phenomenon, occurs in the case of a stable affective union of a couple with mutual moral and material assistance between two persons of age not bound by relationships of kinship, affinity or adoption, nor bound by marriage or civil union
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In the Italian legal system, the more uxorio cohabitant, unlike the spouse and the party to the civil union, is granted very circumscribed inheritance rights, as he or she is neither a legitimary nor a successor ex lege of the deceased cohabitant
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Therefore, in order to ensure that the respective partner has adequate asset-success protection, there remains no other way but to resort to the will or, if the conditions set forth in EU Reg. July 4, 2012, No. 650 are met, to choose as the law applicable to one’s succession (so-called optio iuris) a law that recognizes broader rights to the surviving cohabitant
The so-called “de facto family”, which exists when specific requirements are met, is regulated in our legal system by Article 1, paragraphs 36 et al. of the “Cirinnà Law” (Law no. 76/2016). In case of death of the de facto cohabitant, such law does not grant full protection to the surviving cohabitant in terms of inheritance rights: mostly, it tends to limit it to the right to continue to live in the house of common residence for a maximum period of time, depending also on the presence of minor or disabled children, and the right to succeed to the lease of the same house. It is however possibile, under certain conditions, to choose, as the law applicable to the succession, a law that assigns broader rights to the surviving de facto cohabitant.
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