Last will during a pandemic: Some considerations about the forms admitted in Spanish Law

The exceptional nature of the moment we are living has evidenced, on the one hand, the importance of prevention and planning in the field of post-mortem estate law and, on the other, the different possibilities that our Legal System offers us when disposing mortis cause. The current context of a pandemic, with an unpredictable increase in mortality, has led us to a situation of confinement and isolation that is difficult to fit in with the typical formalisms of last will provisions that provide, in the Spanish legal system, protection through of the notarial control. For all these reasons, the purpose of this work is to analyze and review the testamentary forms or mortis causa provisions admitted by Spanish civil law, of possible use in times of epidemic, taking into account that in Spain they coexist, together with civil law state, six foral civil rights, with their specific features. Thus, it should be remembered that, in view of the afore mentioned private legal pluralism, the rule of habitual residence linked to the so-called civil neighborhood (art. 14 cc) is the one that will determine the succession law applicable to each case.