The tax office claims your late father's debt from you

The case, in five lines

What is brought

A reposición appeal or an economic-administrative claim against the payment demand addressed to the successor or the enforcement order (lack of acceptance, non-transmitted penalties, limitation, notifications), together with the civil defence: the right to deliberate, benefit of inventory or renunciation. Afterwards, a contencioso-administrativo (judicial review) claim.

Before which court

The collection office that issued the act (reposición appeal) or the Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Regional (TEAR, the regional tax appeals tribunal), although the written claim is addressed to the office that issued the act, which forwards it to the tribunal. Against the TEAR's decision, the Sala de lo Contencioso-Administrativo of the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (the regional High Court); for municipal taxes, the contencioso-administrativo section of the Tribunal de Instancia (the first-instance court). The dispute resolution step of article 5 of LO 1/2025 does not apply, as it belongs to civil proceedings.

Deadline

One month, a strict time bar, from the day after notification to lodge the reposición appeal or the claim (arts. 223.1 and 235.1 LGT); once it passes, the act is final. Two months to go to court from the day after notification of the express decision (art. 46.1 LJCA). The debt becomes time-barred four years from the day after the voluntary payment period ended (arts. 66 and 67 LGT), unless interrupted.

Who can bring it

The heir or residuary legatee served with the demand, and also the person called to inherit who has not yet accepted and denies being a successor. On the other side, the Agencia Tributaria, the regional government or the town council. While the estate remains unaccepted, proceedings are conducted with whoever administers or represents it (arts. 39.3 and 177.1 LGT).

Financial risk

If you accepted outright, you answer with your own assets (art. 1003 CC): salary, bank accounts and home. Without suspension, collection continues during the appeal and the debt grows with surcharges and interest. The economic-administrative route is free of charge unless there is recklessness or bad faith; in court, the general rule is that the losing party pays the costs.

The tax office can only collect from you if you are already an heir, and that requires acceptance

Article 39.1 LGT passes the deceased's outstanding tax obligations to the heirs, but with a proviso almost nobody reads: "without prejudice to what civil law provides regarding the acquisition of the inheritance". Under Spanish common civil law, an inheritance is not acquired by being a child of the deceased but by accepting it. Until you accept, in writing or through acts only an heir would perform, you are someone called to inherit and not a successor: the debt is not yet yours.

For that interval the law has its own debtor: the herencia yacente (the estate pending acceptance). Article 39.3 LGT entrusts its representative with the deceased's tax obligations and allows them to be paid from its assets, and article 177.1 LGT lets collection continue against those assets. Put plainly: the tax office can seize your father's flat or bank account even if nobody has accepted, but not your salary or your home.

That is why the first step is to see to whom the demand was addressed and on what basis. Article 177.1 LGT allows proceedings to continue against the heirs "with no further requirement than proof of the death" and notification, and the Agencia Tributaria usually identifies them through the will or the inheritance tax return. But being named in a will is not accepting: if the file records no act of acceptance by you, that is the first line of the appeal.

Your father's penalties are not inherited; interest and surcharges are

Article 39.1 LGT is categorical: "In no case shall penalties be transmitted", and article 182.3 LGT repeats it. It makes no difference that the fine was final or under enforcement when your father died: liability for penalties is personal and ends with him. Even so, the demand to the successor often arrives as a single figure in which the penalty is added to the tax due, and whoever pays the total to close the matter pays what is not owed.

What is inherited is the tax debt in the strict sense: under article 58 LGT, the tax due plus late-payment interest and surcharges for late filing or for the enforcement period, with penalties expressly left out. The work consists of breaking down the figure assessment by assessment and seeking the annulment of everything that originates in a penalty, including, we argue, the surcharges and interest accrued on the penalty itself.

The same provision decides cases involving business owners: a liable person's obligation is not transmitted either, unless the decision deriving that liability was notified before death. If your father ran an indebted company and the tax office never notified him of the derivation during his lifetime, that debt does not pass to you. If it did, the defence is the one used against derivation, explained in its own guide, from the position in which he left it.

Accepting, renouncing or accepting with benefit of inventory: which assets pay

Whoever accepts outright answers for the burdens of the estate "not only with its assets, but also with his own" (art. 1003 CC). With benefit of inventory, by contrast, the heir only pays as far as the inherited assets reach and his own property is not merged with the deceased's (art. 1023 CC). Renunciation, in a notarial public deed (art. 1008 CC), takes you out. If your father was subject to a regional civil law, these rules change and are checked first.

The danger is that accepting does not require a signature. Article 999 CC allows implied acceptance through acts that necessarily presuppose the will to accept or that one would have no right to perform except as an heir, and article 1000 CC treats selling or assigning the right and renouncing in favour of a co-heir as acceptance. Selling your father's car or collecting his rents as your own may be enough. Acts of mere preservation or provisional management, such as keeping the flat insured, do not amount to acceptance.

The tax office can also force the decision. Article 1005 CC allows any interested party, and a creditor is one, to go to a notary so that the person called to inherit is told he has thirty calendar days to accept outright, accept with benefit of inventory or renounce, with the warning that his silence will count as outright acceptance. Leaving that notarial demand in a drawer is the same as signing an unconditional acceptance.

Deliberating suspends collection and lets you see the whole debt before deciding

Article 1010 CC allows an heir to request an inventory before accepting or renouncing, "in order to deliberate on this point". Article 177.1 LGT gives this an immediate tax effect: if the heir states that he has exercised the right to deliberate, collection is suspended until the period granted expires, and he may request a list of the deceased's debts. Article 127 of the Reglamento General de Recaudación (the General Collection Regulations) provides that, once his status is proven, he is issued a certificate detailing them.

The civil deadlines are short and linked. Whoever holds the estate must say so before a notary and request the inventory within thirty days of learning he is an heir (art. 1014 CC); whoever neither holds nor has managed it counts from the expiry of the period set under article 1005 or from when he acted as heir (art. 1015 CC); outside those cases, article 1016 CC allows it as long as no claim has been brought against him. After the inventory there are thirty days to decide, and silence is outright acceptance (art. 1019 CC).

That certificate is merely informative, and this matters. Article 39.2 LGT allows later assessment of what accrued during the deceased's lifetime: a review of income tax for years not yet time-barred can arrive months after acceptance. Whoever accepts outright relying on a clean list takes that on too; with benefit of inventory it is paid, at most, with what was inherited. And the benefit is lost if an asset is knowingly concealed or sold without the authorisation required by article 1024 CC.

What the appeal can dispute: your status, limitation and what is already final

The heir does not come in as a third party but in his father's place. Article 127 of the General Collection Regulations subrogates him "into the same position the deceased held at the time of death" and grades the payment period and surcharge according to whether death occurred in the voluntary period, before or after the enforcement order. Unlike a director to whom a company debt is derived, you do not reopen the merits: an assessment your father left final reaches you final.

Even so, there is a great deal to dispute. Against the enforcement order, article 167.3 LGT allows extinction or limitation of the debt, deferral, instalments, set-off or another ground for suspension, failure to notify or annulment of the assessment, and an error preventing identification of the debtor or the debt. Added to this is what is specific to the successor: that he has not accepted, that a penalty is being demanded, or that an assessment made after the death was not notified to everyone concerned (art. 39.2 LGT). That later assessment can indeed be challenged on its merits.

Limitation calls for its own calculation. Article 66 LGT sets four years to assess and to demand payment, and article 67.1 LGT counts collection from the day after the voluntary period ended. Death does not interrupt that period; it is interrupted by the acts in article 68.2 LGT carried out with the taxpayer's formal knowledge, and article 68.8 LGT extends an interruption against one obligor to all the others. That is why every notification, to your father, to the unaccepted estate and to each sibling, is reconstructed with its delivery record.

One month to appeal, suspension of collection, and then the courts

The reposición appeal is lodged within one month from the day after notification, before the office that issued the act (art. 223.1 LGT); the claim, within the same month, by a written claim also addressed to that office, which forwards it to the Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Regional (arts. 235.1 and 235.3 LGT). Once the month passes, the demand is final and only very narrow extraordinary routes remain. If the claimant is the town council, for property tax or the municipal capital gains tax on your father's flat, the prior reposición appeal is generally compulsory, but optional in large municipalities (municipios de gran población), which have their own body for economic-administrative claims.

Appealing does not by itself halt collection. Article 233 LGT automatically suspends enforcement if the amount of the act, the interest generated by the suspension and the surcharges are secured, by a deposit, a joint and several guarantee from a bank or mutual guarantee company, a surety insurance certificate or a guarantee from other taxpayers of recognised solvency, and it allows suspension without security if the act may have been issued with an arithmetical, material or factual error. If you exercised the right to deliberate, the suspension under article 177.1 LGT also applies.

Against the TEAR's decision a contencioso-administrativo claim lies within two months from the day after its notification (art. 46.1 LJCA), before the Sala de lo Contencioso-Administrativo of the Tribunal Superior de Justicia (the regional High Court); against municipal acts, before the contencioso-administrativo section of the Tribunal de Instancia (the first-instance court). The dispute resolution step of article 5 of LO 1/2025 does not apply here, as it belongs to civil proceedings. It does apply if one sibling pays and claims their share from the others (art. 1085 CC) before the civil section of the Tribunal de Instancia.

How we run the case, step by step

1. 1

   Identifying the act and fixing the last day of the month

   We establish what has arrived: a payment demand to the successor, an enforcement order, an assessment or the opening of a review of your father's tax years. The notification date is recorded and the month under articles 223.1 and 235.1 LGT is calculated.

2. 2

   Freezing the estate and reconstructing what was done since the death

   Until a decision is taken, nobody sells, collects or disposes of anything as owner. Every movement in the deceased's accounts and every act by each sibling is reviewed, because implied acceptance under articles 999 and 1000 CC is individual.

3. 3

   Exercising the right to deliberate and requesting the list of debts

   The request for an inventory in order to deliberate is formalised before a notary (arts. 1010 and 1014 to 1016 CC), the collection office is informed so that it suspends collection (art. 177.1 LGT), and the certificate of the deceased's debts under article 127 RGR is requested.

4. 4

   Reposición appeal or TEAR claim within the month

   We argue lack of acceptance, the exclusion of penalties and non-transmitted liabilities (art. 39.1 LGT), limitation (arts. 66 to 68 LGT) and defective notification, with the grounds of article 167.3 LGT where the enforcement order is challenged, and suspension is requested.

5. 5

   Deciding with the figure in hand: renounce, inventory or accept

   With the debt certificate and the valuation of the assets, the decision is taken within the thirty days of article 1019 CC. If the debt exceeds the estate, renunciation (art. 1008 CC) or benefit of inventory (art. 1023 CC); if renouncing, we anticipate who is called next (art. 923 CC).

6. 6

   Court claim within two months and settling between siblings

   If the TEAR rejects the claim, a contencioso-administrativo claim within two months (art. 46.1 LJCA) before the Tribunal Superior de Justicia, with a request for interim relief. If a co-heir paid more than his share, he claims from the others under article 1085 CC, after first attempting an appropriate dispute resolution method.

The law that applies

• Art. 39 LGT. Passes outstanding tax obligations to the heirs, without prejudice to civil law on acquiring the inheritance; always excludes penalties and a liable person's obligation not notified during his lifetime; allows later assessment of what accrued, notifying everyone concerned, and entrusts compliance to the representative of the unaccepted estate. BOE-A-2003-23186
• Art. 177 LGT. Continues collection against heirs and legatees upon proof of death and notification of the demand; suspends it if the heir invokes the right to deliberate, with informative access to the deceased's debts, and allows proceedings against the assets of the unaccepted estate. BOE-A-2003-23186
• Art. 127 RGR. Subrogates the successor into the deceased's position at death, grades the payment period and surcharge by the moment of death and, if the heir deliberates, provides for a merely informative certificate of outstanding debts. BOE-A-2005-14803
• Arts. 66, 67 y 68 LGT. Set four years as the limitation period for assessing and collecting, count collection from the day after the voluntary period ends, list the acts that interrupt the period and extend an interruption against one obligor to all the others. BOE-A-2003-23186
• Arts. 167.3, 223.1 y 235.1 LGT. Set a closed list of grounds against the enforcement order and fix one month from the day after notification for the reposición appeal and the economic-administrative claim. BOE-A-2003-23186
• Arts. 999, 1000, 1003, 1005 y 1008 CC. Allow implied acceptance, except acts of mere preservation; treat assignment of the right and renunciation in favour of co-heirs as acceptance; make the heir who accepts outright liable with his own assets; allow a notarial demand for a decision within thirty calendar days, with silence as acceptance, and require a public deed to renounce. BOE-A-1889-4763
• Arts. 1010, 1014 a 1016, 1019, 1023 y 1024 CC. Govern the right to deliberate and benefit of inventory: thirty-day periods to request it and to decide, with silence as outright acceptance; liability limited to inherited assets without merging estates, and loss of the benefit for concealing assets or selling them without authorisation. BOE-A-1889-4763
• Art. 46 LJCA. Sets two months for the contencioso-administrativo claim from the day after notification of the express act closing the administrative route, six if it is implied, and counts time from the day after notification of the decision on the reposición appeal where there was one. BOE-A-1998-16718

Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).

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