CHAPTER I

SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS

Scope
Article 1
1
This Regulation shall apply to succession to the estates of deceased persons. It shall not apply to revenue, customs or administrative matters.
2
The following shall be excluded from the scope of this Regulation:
a
the status of natural persons, as well as family relationships and relationships deemed by the law applicable to such relationships to have comparable effects;
b
the legal capacity of natural persons, without prejudice to point (c) of Article 23(2) and to Article 26;
c
questions relating to the disappearance, absence or presumed death of a natural person;
d
questions relating to matrimonial property regimes and property regimes of relationships deemed by the law applicable to such relationships to have comparable effects to marriage;
e
maintenance obligations other than those arising by reason of death;
f
the formal validity of dispositions of property upon death made orally;
g
property rights, interests and assets created or transferred otherwise than by succession, for instance by way of gifts, joint ownership with a right of survivorship, pension plans, insurance contracts and arrangements of a similar nature, without prejudice to point (i) of Article 23(2);
h
questions governed by the law of companies and other bodies, corporate or unincorporated, such as clauses in the memoranda of association and articles of association of companies and other bodies, corporate or unincorporated, which determine what will happen to the shares upon the death of the members;
i
the dissolution, extinction and merger of companies and other bodies, corporate or unincorporated;
j
the creation, administration and dissolution of trusts;
k
the nature of rights in rem; and
l
any recording in a register of rights in immovable or movable property, including the legal requirements for such recording, and the effects of recording or failing to record such rights in a register.