A resident of Shymkent attempted to contest her father's inheritance 14 years after his death, but the Cassation Court refused her claim, reminding her of the six-month deadline for accepting an inheritance, reports infohub.kz.
According to the case, after the man's death in 2011, his mother received a certificate of inheritance for a residential house with a land plot. Fourteen years later, the deceased's daughter filed a lawsuit, claiming she was not included among the heirs and asking to invalidate the inheritance certificate and the will.
The courts of first and appellate instances satisfied the claim, but the cassation instance took the opposite position. The cassation court explained that under the law, an inheritance must be accepted within six months from the date of the testator's death. A missed deadline can only be restored through court and only in exceptional cases with valid reasons.
Furthermore, it turned out that the deceased's daughter had not taken any actions to accept the inheritance, had not requested to restore the deadline, and had not proven that she lived in the inherited house. The woman explained her delay by saying that she was a minor at the time of her father's death and that her parents were divorced. However, the court noted that the interests of a child are protected by legal representatives, and no evidence was provided that the mother could not do so or was restricted in parental rights.
In the end, the cassation court ruled that if a person did not formalize their inheritance rights in time, they cannot annul other people's documents and wills. The court overturned the decisions of the lower instances and finally refused the plaintiff.