Legal Institutions Regulating the Subject and Rules of Liability of Debtor’s Heirs: Comments on the Background of Polish and German Law Solutions

Abstract

The article attempts to answer the question whether legal regulations regulating the aspect of the of succession law referred to in the title, i.e., the subject and principles of liability of the debtor’s heirs and the closely connected rights of the creditors, introduced by the Act of 20 March 2015 Amending the Act – the Civil Code and Certain Other Acts (official journal ‘Dz.U.’ of 2015, item 539), are sufficient. The considerations aimed at formulating conclusions were conducted on the basis of research methods appropriate to civil law. First of all, a formal-dogmatic method has been applied in order to present the current legal solutions and allowing, at a further stage of the considerations, to verify the research thesis and the underlying research hypotheses. In order to assess the degree of dissimilarity of solutions adopted in the Polish law, pertaining to the examined issue, with the solutions applied in other countries, the method of legal-comparative analysis was applied. For this purpose, the system of German law was chosen as, alike in the Polish law, in this legal system unlimited liability for inheritance debts is the rule. Some of the considerations were also based on the historical-comparative method and concerned mainly the discussion of other legal institutions known to the succession law relating to the scope and subject of the liability of the debtor’s heirs. These remarks referred primarily to regulations in force prior to the entry of the Polish Civil Code and the Code of Civil Procedure into force. The final part of the article presents conclusions and de lege ferenda postulates.