Samenvatting

The rules of the Spanish and the Catalan civil codes dealing with compulsory shares and spousal protection in succession law represent very differentiated models of family protection within the large variety of legal regulations coexisting in Spain. The Spanish code, with little changes since 1889, lays down a system of large compulsory shares for the descendants (2/3 of the estate) or, failing them, the ascendants (1/2 of the estate), and confers a right of usufruct of varying extension to the surviving spouse. The Catalan code, renewed in 2008, establishes a much shorter compulsory share (1/4 of the estate) for the descendants or, failing them, the parents of the deceased person, and protects not only the spouse but also the unmarried partner by granting the survivor a maintenance-like right of up to a quarter of the estate.