Question: My cousin who lived in Italy recently died. How can I find out if he left a will?
Answer: in Italy there are three types of Wills: 1) Holographic Will, 2) Public Will, or 3) Secret Will. Below is some information on how to check whether he left any of such Wills.
Holographic Will
If your cousin left a holographic Will, i.e., a handwritten Will, privately drafted without the involvement of an Italian notary, you can know about it only if someone is aware of it and, upon your cousin’s death, took the Will to an Italian notary to register it. If no one takes an original holographic Will to an Italian notary, there is no official way to know whether a handwritten Will exists.
Public Will or Secret Will
In both cases, if your cousin left either of these types of Will, it had to be kept confidentially by a licensed Italian notary public who had the duty to keep it confidential until the testator’s death. If the notary retired or died before your cousin’s death, all Wills held by that notary would have been sent to the local Notary Archive. Once the notary (or the Notary Archive) is made aware of the testator’s death (e.g., someone provides the notary or the Notary Archive with the death certificate), the Will, whether “public” or secret, is made public, meaning accessible to the general public.
If you have your cousin’s death certificate you can send a request to the local notary offices through the local Notary Association. There are particular enquiry policies set up for Will discovery. If you do not have a copy of the death certificate but you know where your cousin was resident when he died, you need first to obtain the death certificate by applying for it with the competent Italian Authority such as the local Municipality (Comune).
Once you send the Will discovery enquiry to the notary network along with the death certificate the network will circulate your request through all notaries and they will let you know if they have found your cousin’s Will. If you do not know where your cousin was an Italian resident at time of death, it is also possible to file a national Will discovery request through the National Italian Notary Association so that your request will be sent to all notaries and Notary Associations of Italy.
We handle Italian successions throughout Italy. We will be glad to assist you through the discovery procedure as well as through the inheritance claim process and estate liquidation.
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