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GLOSSARY

The Glossary is made of terms related to the current video-lesson as well as to all other lessons that
create the entire e-learning course “International Succession Issues”, available on this platform.

Account: the set of functions, tools and contents, which are attribuited to a
single user, to whom are given credentials (username and password) to
access them with recognition procedure called authentication.

Act mortis causa: legal acts intended to produce their effects only from the
moment of their author's death. They can be either a contract (succession
contract) or an act of last will (testament).

Agreement as to succession means an agreement, including an agreement

resulting from mutual wills, which, with or without consideration, creates,
modifies or terminates rights to the future estate or estates of one or more
persons party to the agreement

Assisted fertilization: it is the process by which the union of gametes is

carried out artificially. Homologous fertilization is referred to when the seed
and egg used in assisted fertilization belong to the parent couple of the
unborn child. Heterologic fertilization occurs, however, when the seed or egg
come from a subject outside the couple.

Bitcoin: is a virtual currency, meaning that it is not printed like normal

paper money, but that it is created, distributed and exchanged in a
completely virtual way, through computers.
 C

Concordat Marriage: The marriage rite conducted according to the

traditions of some religions can be recognized and registered by the civil
registry office without having to enter into a separate civil marriage.

Cryptocurrencies or virtual currencies: application of digital technology

to the financial sector. It is a "hidden" currency in the sense that it is visible /
usable only by knowing a specific computer code (the so-colled "access
keys"). The cryptocurrency does not exist in physical, paper or metallic form
(also for this reason it is defined as "virtual") but is generated and exchanged
exclusively by telematic means.

Digital Heritage: the personal wealth that everyone entrusts to digital

preservation systems. It includes native digital resources and analogic
resources converted in digital form.

Disinheritance clause: It is a testamentary disposition, with pure negative

contents, by which the testator deprives on purpose somebody among the
ones entitled by law to his succession of the possibility to succeed him.

Disposition of property upon death means a will, a joint will or an

agreement as to succession

Divorce or dissolution of the marriage: it is a legal institution that decrees

the end of a marriage through a procedure that can be consensual (based on
the joint request of the spouses if there is agreement in the discipline of
personal and property effects resulting from the end of the marriage) or
contentious (based on a ruling by the competent Judicial Authority).

Embryo: a developing organism, derived from the fertilized egg, after it has
passed from the unicellular condition to the multicellular one. In particular,
in man it is called embryo the product of conception in the prenatal phase in
which the sketches of the different organs are formed, without it having yet
assumed the characteristics of the human species.

European Certificate of Succession: document, established by EU

Regulation n. 650/2012, intended for use by the heirs, legatees having direct
rights in the succession and executors of wills or administrators of the estate
who, in another Member State, need to invoke their status or to exercise
respectively their rights as heirs or legatees and/or their powers as
executors of wills or administrators of the estate.

Fictitius (ore shame or fake) Marriage: where both spouses enter into
marriage without willing all the marriage effects.

Files: is a container of information/data in digital format, typically present

on a digital storage medium appropriately formatted in a given file system.

Gamete: Reproductive cell destined to join with a gamete of the opposite sex
in the process of fertilization to give rise to a new individual.

Habitual residence: it is an international connection criterion that aims to

identify a stable, close and effective link between a person and a given
geographical area, based on both objective elements (such as the time, the
duration, the nature and characteristics of the stay) that subjective (the
person's intention to establish his main stable center of life and business
interests in a particular place).

J
Joint will means a will drawn up in one instrument by two or more persons.
 M

Matrimonial regime: it is a set of rules about the effects of the marriage on

the administration, the enjoyment, the disposal of their property by the
spouses during the marriage. 


Mental reserve: where one of the spouses, while expressing outwardly its
own nuptial consent, advances in its inner sphere some reserve regarding
the marriage.

Partnership property agreement means any agreement between partners

or future partners by which they organise the property consequences of
their registered partnership.

Polygamy: marriage of an individual with two or more individuals of the

opposite sex.

Postnuptial agreements: they are similar to prenuptial agreements, except

that they are entered into after a couple is married.

Prenuptial (or antenuptial or premarital) agreement: it is a contract

entered into prior to marriage by the people intending to marry.

Public order: set of fundamental principles of the legal system concerning

ethical and political principles as well as laws whose observance and
implementation is considered indispensable for the existence of this order.

Registered partnership: the regime governing the shared life of two people
which is provided for in law, the registration of which is mandatory under
that law and which fulfils the legal formalities required by that law for its
creation.
Repudiation: is a unilateral decision of the husband who decides to
terminate the marriage.

Shari’ah: it is the sacred law of Islamism (divine law). It is not the product of
the human mind but the word of God as revealed to the Prophet; it is the law
that guides human conduct and the an individual’s conscience.

Succession’ means succession to the estate of a deceased person and covers

all forms of transfer of assets, rights and obligations by reason of death,
whether by way of a voluntary transfer under a disposition of property upon
death or a transfer through intestate succession.

Testament: it is a unilateral non-receptive, revocable, juridical act, through

which a person manifests his will and disposes of his rights, in whole or in
part, for the time in which he will have ceased to live. It is an act of last will
reserved for the task of establishing heirs and legatees and may contain
ancillary provisions