Yesterday (9 March 2023), the Court of Justice delivered its judgment on the case No C-354/21, R.J.R v. Registrų centras VĮ.
The dispute in the main proceeding arises when, in March 2019, R.J.R., who resides in Germany, applied to the Lithuanian Centre of Registers – the state body responsible for keeping the cadastral register and land register in Lithuania – for the registration of his right of ownership of immovable property located in Lithuania, acquired as succession to his mother’s estate. At the time of her death (December 2015), R.J.R.’s mother was habitually resident in Germany. The applicant, according to German law, has been granted, by the competent German authority, a European Certificate of Succession in which it was stated that the deceased had left her estate to R.J.R., who was her sole heir and who accepted the succession without reservation.
The Lithuanian authority rejected the application, on the ground that that Certificate did not contain the information necessary for the identification of the immovable property laid out in Lithuanian law, since it did not indicate the assets inherited by the applicant. After R.J.R.’s appeals have been dismissed by lower Courts, he brought an action before the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (Lietuvos vyriausiasis administracinis teismas). The Court decided to stay the proceedings and to refer a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice.
In the decision, the Court of Justice stated that Arts 1(2)(l), 68(l) and 69(5) of Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 must be interpreted “as meaning that they do not preclude legislation of a Member State which provides that an application for registration of immovable property in the land register of that Member State may be rejected where the only document submitted in support of that application is a European Certificate of Succession which does not identify that immovable property”.
On the European Certificate of Succession and on the European Succession Regulation, the readers of RDIPP may refer to:
Ilaria Viarengo, 2020, No 3, 559 ff; Francesca C. Villata, 2019, no 4, 714 ff; Domenico Damascelli, 2019, No 1, 45 ff; Andrea Bonomi, 2019, No 1, 25 ff; Jacopo Re, 2018, No 4, 978 ff; Ilaria Queirolo, 2018, No 4, 870 ff; Francesca Maoli, 2018, No 3, 676 ff; Zeno Crespi Reghizzi, 2017, No 3, 633 ff; Domenico Damascelli, 2017, No 1, 67 ff; Peter Kindler, 2017, No 1, 12 ff; Cristina Campiglio, 2016, No 4, 925 ff; Luigi Fumagalli, 2015, No 4, 779 ff; Fabrizio Vismara, 2014, No 4, 803 ff.; Andrea Bonomi, 2013, No 2, 293 ff; Andrea Bonomi, 2010, No 4, 874 ff.
Moreover, see, in our Book Series:
Jacopo Re, Book No 85; Lenka Válková, Book No 87.