“So if you have one sibling and dad dies, you get 50% and your sibling gets 50% and mom gets nothing (but you can’t boot mom out of the house). Even if the will changes this, the children can still demand their share.”

Widow is left with the apartment and with movables. Anything else outside the apartment can be demanded to be divided by the children. You cannot even leave your children without inheritance unless they kill you or you waste it all before you die Widow also inherits everything even with prenap agreement in case of no children.

I think this kind of law was made when Finland was mostly a rural country. To ensure the survival of the farm, children could not wait until both parents were dead. One down, divide and move on.

Well maybe it is time to change the law. Although I wonder how likely that is seeing that it is the children who mostly would be responsible for changing it.

Just put all your assets in a joint account. Solves the brat kid problem as she then has it all.

Just put all your assets in a joint account. Solves the brat kid problem as she then has it all.

I don’t think that works.

I think this kind of law was made when Finland was mostly a rural country.

Ahh okay, that makes sense. But like Fred said, might be time to change the law. I’ve heard way too many horror stories from Finns about this law.

Sure, when one dies, just go in and close the joint accounts, moving the money to your new single account. You have that right as co-owner.

“I’ve heard way too many horror stories from Finns about this law.”

On the other hand it is fairer to the children, no favorites. Children are children, no matter what they do. No more ass licking and competing for the favorite position in the eyes of parents. Parents can also be brutal to their children, especially when money is involved. Maybe that is good solution in the US but not here.

Especially when it used to be that the oldest boy got the farm and the rest of children were left with nothing and were forced to leave the farm in most cases.

Is it not so that this is the default position if there is no will but if there is a will then that determines inheritance? Make a will.

Lots of countries favour the children over the spouse if there is no will. Blood is thicker than water.

“Sure, when one dies, just go in and close the joint accounts, moving the money to your new single account. You have that right as co-owner.”

Nope, you can’t do that, till the inventory is made. All you can pay from such account till then are bills addressed to the deceased.

There was some confusion about this matter when it was last discussed here, and Phil’s idea of it seems awfully simplified to me. I try to my best explain this in some detail.

First, it is important to understand that when a married person dies, it starts two separate but connected legal processes regarding property.

The one that is performed first is called “ositus”, rought translation “separation of properties”. Ositus is invoked whenever marriage ends for whatever reason, death or divorce. The purpose of this process is to find out what what property of the deceased person is under “avio-oikeus”, or “marital right”, and what is the value of that property.

By default, all of persons property comes under avio-oikeus. This can be limited by a prenuptial agreement, which by default applies to both death and divorce, but often is limited to the latter case only. Property gotten from others as inheritance or as a gift may also be outside avio-oikeus, if that is stated in the will or certificate of gift. This is quite often used by parents to keep a unpleasant son-in-law out of ownership of family kesämökki

Also the property of the widow which is under avio-oikeus is now investigated. Now, if the deceased was richer, property is transferred to the widow until their net worth is equal. For example, if widow is worth 100 000 and the deceased 200 000, 50 000 is given to the widow.

This 50000 is called “tasinko”, and in this stage it has nothing to do with inheritance. This is a source of confusion, since often people say that X inherited so much from his/hers spouse, even if it was actually tasinko. Important difference between divorce and death is that a widow is never obliged to pay tasinko to heirs of the deceased.

Now, the 150000 left to the estate comes under “perinnönjako”, the actual inheritance process. This is much simpler process, and most people get this right. Children have “laki-osuus”, “legal share” for 50% of that. Deceased person may give 50% to anybody with a will. Children do not necesserily need to demand their share, and in that case the whole sum goes to whoever the will says. If there is no will, the children get it all. If there are no children or a will, widow gets it all.

There are exceptions to protect the spouse where the spouse retains right of use to some property, but not ownership. That’s the can’t be kicked out of the house rule.

Hope I got it right Ask and correct freely

Now to the ideological part. The purpose of inheritance is to pass property to the next generation. How would the spouse getting it all would serve this purpose? Guess there is a cultural difference, somehow Finns see children as natural heirs, where Americans do not.

Exceptions are there to protect the socioeconomical status of the widow. As such, they are a form of transfer payment. Instead of taking the property away as inheritance tax and paying it back as a widowers pension, they just made silly laws like that, but that’s the only difference. Therefore, the idea of the spouse as a main heir seems horribly non-liberal to me.

Wow T good stuff. My problem is, the surviving spouse worked hard to build up the joint nest egg, and then when the other half dies, she/he will see that hard work transfered to who? The non working children?

Sounds like socialism at work here, not fairness to those who actually did the work. Sort of take’s the incentives away, when you see 50 000 transfered to level the inheratance, then 50% of that given to the non contributing children.

I actually had a Finn say to me while I was tryiong to explain private retirement services in Australia that moving elderly parents into privately funded retirement homes wouldn’t work here because selling the “family home” to pay for the small serviced flat would eat into “their money.” When I pressed as to what this meant she told me coldly that in Finland the next generation is waiting for “pay day” when parents die so they get half of the family estate (shared by siblings) and are then able to pay off their home or buy a new car/cottage. I nearly threw up upon hearing this.
I’m with Phil here. Why would kids think their parents wealth/estate has anything to do with them? Why such an expectation? I know when I lost my father a few years back that the estate simply went to mum and life goes on. What she wishes to do with it is her choice. They earnt it so they can DECIDE what to do with it. Oops, there it is again. They are FREE TO DECIDE THEMSELVES what to do. Something that is frowned upon in Finland.

Interesting. It makes me wonder how the Anna Nicole debate would have played itself out had it occurred in Finland instead of the US …

Nah, finnish system is just the ultimate parenting quality control. If you raise mulquist kids, who get stingy on your final years and just expect you to flip, it’s just another manifestation of the “what you order is what you get” -principle

Antti is right. If your kid is an asshole, what does that tell about you?

As only child I own half of my mothers house. My mother lives there but I maintain the house. She pays what bills she can and I take care of the rest. Works beautifully.

When my mother finally dies I will bypass her half of the house to my kids. They will need it more than I and that saves our family from paying inheritance tax 2 times of the same property.

It is an equally absurd idea that a relationship of any kind should have any impact on your belongins in case of a divorce.
For in these times of independence and equality the “safety for the woman” argument has lost its meaning.

That begs the question who is entitled to someone elses dough?
After all time and time again it is shown nothing particulary productive comes from super-rich heirs, instead the blue blood seems to be a waste of oxygen more of than not.

“Now to the ideological part. The purpose of inheritance is to pass property to the next generation. How would the spouse getting it all would serve this purpose? Guess there is a cultural difference, somehow Finns see children as natural heirs, where Americans do not.”

Because the spouse is still alive and still needs to do the day-to-day? I would think it would all go to the surviving spouse, since it was jointly built by them to begin with. THEN, when the widow(er) would die, the inheritence is passed to the children at THAT point.

To me, it seems as if the law is unfairly jumping the gun.

You foreigners, who are so appalled of the Finnish inheritance law, remember, that the widdows status is very strongly protected. It is just, that in our system, spouses are treated as individuals, not as “half” of something. Everyone is responsible of themselves, just like with the income tax system.

It is interesting, that here in Finland the discussion is more about the possibility of leaving everything for grandchildren instead of children (because often they need it more) and so save the Family in inheritance taxes.

We just have a different way of seeing things, live with it!
After my dad died, my mother moved to an appartment (because she wanted), Technically we children own half of it, but it doesn’t effect to anything. It’s moms home, she lives there and pays the bills, just like earlier. I don’t see a problem there. She has her own pension and part of dads. She manages just fine, well, as fine as one can after losing there husband.

P.S. Also in Finland, everyone is free to make a will, whatever kind of will they want.

The Finnish system makes perfect sense to me the way T described it. If the estate of the deceased is a joined effort, doesn’t that naturally mean that the surviving spouse only has the right to HALF of it (the other half belonging to the dead one)? In the first step, they ensure that the widow is in control of exactly 50% of the property, and in the second step they distribute the dead man’s half between his children. The widow loses nothing in this, since she had no rights to the other 50% in the first place. The objection seems to be that the widow should somehow be able to PROFIT from losing a spouse (as her degree of control over the estate would increase from 50% to 100%), instead of merely not losing anything, and I don’t get the logic behind that.

I don’t get the grumbling against the “legal share” system either. Leaving your children with no inheritance at all is such an assholish thing to do that I don’t see why it should be ever allowed. You raised them, so if they turned out bad 1) you have only yourself to blame and 2) that doesn’t make them any less your children.

As I understand it (and by reading T’s comment), the children are by law entitled to half of their parents’ property. So by my logic, when one parent dies, the children would be entitled to divide up half of the deceased parents’ property, or a quarter of the whole lot.

I could of course have misunderstood the whole thing, wouldn’t be a first.

The only thing about inheritance laws in Finland that really seemed strange to me, was that children could be able to freeze their parents’ assets (or their legal share of it), if the parent should suddenly have the urge to go on a spending spree in their later years with the mission to use up all acquired assets.

I can see this as a means of hindering your alcoholic parent from using up his/her property on booze or what have you, but shouldn’t this be their right, should they choose to?

“Also in Finland, everyone is free to make a will, whatever kind of will they want.”

and you are free to buy a Hummer, and give nothing to your kids.

Come join the evil USA and put a Hummer in every driveway, frak the chicken in every pot.

T (Jul 31st @ 6.16 pm) wrote: “Now, the 150000 left to the estate comes under “perinnönjako”, the actual inheritance process. This is much simpler process, and most people get this right. Children have “laki-osuus”, “legal share” for 50% of that. Deceased person may give 50% to anybody with a will. Children do not necesserily need to demand their share, and in that case the whole sum goes to whoever the will says. If there is no will, the children get it all. If there are no children or a will, widow gets it all.”

As far as I know the Finnish law on inheritance, the above quote is not correct. The children receive the entire inheritance, the surviving spouse is not a beneficiary, will or no will. People often say that the surviving spouse “receives half”, but what they mean is that the surviving spouse keeps what he/she already owns, i.e., half of the estate owned by the married couple.

I’m with Phil btw. Overall, the Finnish law has a tendency to prevent the accumulation of wealth, the law on inheritance is just an example. Whatever the ideology behind it, it simply means that the more wealthy avoid the Finnish system and the less wealthy will not have the freedom to receive the benefits of their own efforts by accumulating wealth. More wealthy people typically contribute more to society than less wealthy ones, the economy is not a zero-sum game, implying that if the more wealthy leave/avoid a society, this society will not only see a flight of capital, but also a flight of human capital aka brain drain. It is also important to keep in mind that capital is an enabler; capital and (industrial) productivity are basically two different words to describe the same thing.

They earnt it so they can DECIDE what to do with it. Oops, there it is again. They are FREE TO DECIDE THEMSELVES what to do.

Punter hit the nail on the head here. In a free society, people do what they want with their money. If they want to leave it with their spouse, then they should be allowed to. If they want to leave it with their kids, then that is fine too.

This law is obviously some archaic thing from the farm days like tim73 said. Finns have just gotten so used to it, they no longer question it. But don’t worry, the U.S. has lots of ridiculous laws still on the books. For instance in my home state of Maryland, oral sex is illegal (no joke).

Sod the kids, leave it all to the Donkey Sanctuary. Donkeys have needs, too. Or to that rather cute nurse with the big bazongas who attended you in your last days. Finland is so dull and boring: no decent headlines like “Woman leaves diamond tiara to pet cat”. Pah! Humbug!

is there a site where you can see this law here in finland?

http://www.finlex.fi has all the laws, and some even translated

No Phil, in your maths the two children inherit 25% each, and the widow 50% of the estate of the deceased, providing the children are offspring of the deceased and there is no will. So like if there are two children, but its a ‘new family’, and there has been no adoption, the biological child of the deceased and the widow are on a 50/50 basis and the other child is in the row after their own parent. So like if the father dies, is married, theres one common child, but he has three other children from a previous marriage, the 3 old children and the current common child are the inheritors of the deceased on an equal basis. Now when in this case the mother dies of course the 3 “strange children” have no say to her half of the estate.

There is usually done a “right-of-occupancy/usage” will that entitles the surviving party the right-of-use of say the house. The ownership of the house however remains as the “estate of the deceased”, as if the ownership is transferred the widow needs to pay inheritance tax on the 50% (and then when the widow dies the children pay another time the tax, whereas if it is an undivided estate the tax is only paid once). However if the ownership and not the occupancy is transferred then the evil children can find themselves without anything as the widow, as the owner, can sell the house and donate the money to old donkeys.

However if the children die without offspring and the widow makes no will, the house reverts -surprise – to the State.

Also, if the widow has the house, but makes massive debts, to get the house the children have to take the debts as well as the house, you inherit the debts unless you “refuse the estate”. So if you don’t like your children live like theres no tomorrow.

http://www.finlex.fi => PERINTÖKAARI

I think that would need to read “the widow keeps her 50%” as its already the property, your offspring are your direct inheritors. T’s explanation of the marital half “division” needs to be remembered here as the “widows part” – its not “inheritance” in the sense.

NOW FINALLY! I understand why the Finnish government is pushing alcohol addiction and cigarette-smoking freedom on the Finnish men. With all the blather in Finland about health, fitness, weight control and so on, it is a very strange sight to see the beautiful Finnish boys turn into smoking, drinking, worn out men by 40. However, if the goal is to kill them early, as in Russia, then everything’s clear! SELVA- a man’s job is to reproduce, work like a dog, pay high taxes, save for and/or build a house, get a break on weekends to drink to excess, and father children. Then POOF! Off he goes into the high blue sky of a summer day, and the kids get all.

NOW FINALLY! I understand why the Finnish government is pushing alcohol addiction and cigarette-smoking freedom on the Finnish men.

They are? What’s with the upcoming alcohol tax hike, state liquor monopoly and very limited selling hours, recent ban on smoking in restaurants, and Paavo Lipponen’s proposal to ban smoking altogether?

With all the blather in Finland about health, fitness, weight control and so on, it is a very strange sight to see the beautiful Finnish boys turn into smoking, drinking, worn out men by 40.

I agree this is a problem. If limiting/banning was the solution, Finnish government would certainly be on the right track.

Ok, most people got it mostly right this time. But still a few clarifications just to make sure.

1. There are a few comments that assume that both spouses are equally rich, or that their property is common. This is usually not the case; what is yours is yours and what is your spouse’s is your spouse’s, even during marriage. But you may get some of your spouses property at the end of the marriage as tasinko as explained.

2. “The children receive the entire inheritance, the surviving spouse is not a beneficiary, will or no will”

What I said about spouse being beneficiary applies to a situation where the deceased has no children at all. In this case the spouse does inherit, if there is no will.

3. “However if the children die without offspring and the widow makes no will, the house reverts -surprise – to the State.”

I’m not sure whether this need clarification or not, as this is a special case and I’m not sure about this myself I’ll go now into more detail what happens if there are no heirs yet discuseed, use your brains yourselves from now on

If you are single, widow or divorced, have no children and you die without a will, your parents (in 50/50 proportion) inherit you. If your parents are dead, your sisters and brothers inherit you. If your sisters and brothers are dead, their children will inherit you. If they too are dead, your grandparents inherit you. Now if your granddad and grandmom are dead, their children (that is, usually, your aunts and uncles) will inherit you. This is where it stops, and if none of the above is alive your property goes to the state.

I seem to recall having heard talk of an upcoming complete rewrite of the inheritance act (perintökaari).

Looking at http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Vireilla/Saadoshankkeet/Henkiloperhejaperintooikeus, I see that such a project does exist and is in a very early stage. Remember, these sorts of things take a decade or so to do properly (sometimes longer, for example the court procedure rewrite took several decades and was finished in late 1990s).

Hm, let’s repaste the URL to make it easy-clickable.

http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Vireilla/Saadoshankkeet/Henkiloperhejaperintooikeus

And what if the survivng spouse is a furriner?

The ambiguity and fear about this particular feature of marital law in Finland was another point in my decision to leave with the kid as I have much more assets than my husband which although they would naturally go to our child after both of our deaths, it’s still my shit motherfuckers until I breathe my last fucking gasp. I also worried about how the system would mess with a surviving, non-citizen, furriner spouse. Considering how poorly we fare in other parts of the system, this one is particularly terrifying to think that your assets could be stripped from you and given to a 4 year old child in the even of your spouse’s death.

I get the concept, but think it creates more problems than it solves, even for natives.

IANAL but I was under the impression that if the heirs can agree on some way of dividing the estate, the authorities could care less about the way it’s done, providing they get their cut (the tax).
Here’s the Ministry of Justice’s take on this: http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Julkaisut/Esitteet/Avioliittolaki/Puolisoidenomaisuudenjako?lang=en and
http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Julkaisut/Esitteet/Avioliittolaki/Puolisoidenoikeudetjavelvollisuudetavioliitossa?lang=en
@36,
A pre-nuptial would have settled that worry. Standard forms: http://www.maistraatti.fi/avioehto.html -> lomakkeet, the very last form on the page. Too late in your case, but highly recommended to anyone living here.

hfb: the system would have treated a foreigner spouse much in the same way as a Finnish one, and in any case you would have been eligible to apply for the citizenship by now.

In general on the inheritance matters: I don’t really care whether the inheritance goes to the widow(er) or the children by default, but IMO people should be able to write a will and leave their estate to whoever they want. I don’t see the point of having to leave at least 50% to your children, at least in the modern society. Yeah, it’s not nice to disinherit one’s children but one should still be able to do it.

For that matter I don’t see the point in marital property laws that extend to the property acquired before marriage.

Yes, it is archaic thing: before this type of legistlation was passed, the oldest son used to inherit the family farm and the rest of the kids (especially girls) would get nothing.

Is this still necessary in a moder society? Maybe, maybe not.

But there is actually a philosophical difference between doing whatever you want with your property when you are alive and having others distribute your property the way you would have liked to see it done when you are dead.

The dead have few rights. For example you cannot vote after you die (even if you say in your will how you would like to vote in the upcoming elections).

Having your property (or part of it) distributed according to your last will and testament is in fact almost the only right the dead have and as such it is an exception, not a rule.

If you want your kids to have nothing, you a free to give away your property while you are still alive. But after you die it’s not your property any more – because you do not exist.

@ Vera…
and in any case you would have been eligible to apply for the citizenship by now.

And in the instance that we would have no wish to take citizenship.. Im put at a disadvantage cos Im proud to be British and have no wishes to dilute that with any dual nat’ status..

Hi Vera

Perhaps I’m too jaded, but the whole concept in legal systems of ‘all men created equal’ in practice is anything but. Much like ‘blind justice’. I always had bad luck with getting a nice judge even in traffic court. It wasn’t a large concern as we moved for Jarkko’s job primarily though it was certainly on the list as having a child does appear to change things quite a bit.

But it is rather strange that death is much like divorce save that the spouses’ assets get redistributed to the children. I suppose that revocable trusts or offshore accounts are popular with those who have assets they wish to protect.

#12: Nearly threw up? I thought that money meant everything. Can’t have too much of a good thing, right? Or is greed not a good thing when expressed by a Finn?

# 40: You actually answered your own question. I fail to see, how dual citizenship in any way dilutes your native status. If it’s only a matter of national pride, surely you’re psychologically robust enough to handle dual-citizenship without the disintegration of your psyche?

You do realize that citizenship, along with certain rights, also brings certain responsibilities? If you refuse those responsibilities, you then also refuse all the benefits pertaining to a citizen. Isn’t it only fair that if someone refuses the citizenship of, say England, they also relinquish any social benefits the state might provide for them?

As far as I know, marriage in Finland is a 50-50 deal. So, if the marriage is over, both halves will be given their legal share, nothing else if otherwise specified. Yeah, you can make a will and you can make marriage articles if you don’t like the 50-50 deal. Anyway, death makes no difference to divorce – as it logically should be. The law only needs some minor adjustments because of nasty people.

Just to mess things up a little, the Min of Justice believes people should be sort of married even when they aren’t: http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Ministry+considers+changes+to+position+of+common-law+partners/1135229190188 .

For example my father married woman roughly my age. If the spouse would inherit everything us children wouldn’t ever get anything. Would that be better solution?

If there is no will who should inherit my father’s new wife after she passes away? Their common children? And nothing left to us from the first marriage?

Clearly this problem has to do with the inequality of death rates between the genders (assuming divorce had not come into the picture back 100 years ago). Women have the unfair advantage of living longer, even when the experience is bitter, painful and lonely – they still get to keep all the cards by simply not dying first, as a rule.

The only way to rectify this is plain: women must be encouraged to ruin their health as fast as men do, to drink and smoke, to curse and go a-banging, to drive fast, to get into fights, and to take as many unnecessary risks as possible. It is obvious that attacking the male end of this imbalance won’t work: men will never give up all their endless evasions of consciousness, while women at best take up crocheting, kvetching, tango dancing on Saturdays, or drinking coffee with fellow Kaffeekvetchers. I love that video of Finnish women singing their “HELSINKI COMPLAINTS!” No wonder the women live longer: they SING OUT their disgust with Finnish life, traditions, public transit, lousy husbands and the cruel climate. Men drown their sorrows with sisu-vodka, like idiots, then die like mosquitoes at the end of a Lapp summer.

Children with concerns, as per example ANON above, whose father married a woman his son’s age, could engineer a little murder to even things out. Simply avoid having the law enforcement detect it, so that it looks like dying of grief if the poor old Finn-Dad dies.

Finnish men, put some color in your faces, cast off that pastiness, that grumpiness, that old-man-at-40 mentality! Take a vacation in California, work on a beach selling hotdogs, and feel 30 years younger! Take up surfing! Don’t go back to Finland, there’s only a rocking chair waiting for you and stupid American sitcoms at night.

A further note – I see a male camel killed a male wild ass (a Kulan?) at the Helsinki Zoo – and alcohol was NOT involved! So you see, throughout the male animal kingdom, things are rough for all mammals, and it is natural that a male camel would leave his dungheap and strawpile for the surviving female(s). If every wild ass that comes along could be threatening, then of course a camel must guard his own! And nowadays, even in the streets of Helsinki, there are non-Finn wild asses going fullblast tilt against the Finnish male dominating camels, right in the Metro even. So alas, yet again, another cause of early demises amongst male Finns rears its ugly head: mixing different species of humans affects the hormones of the males, causing violence and death.

Another anti-immigrant argument if ever I heard one, especially for Finns with these female-preference inheritance laws. More government interference in the death rate gender imbalance????

Actually, Finns being a very isolationist culture, as you may have found out, they are not even aware that their legal system is based on Code Napoléon, i.e. the French legal system, precisely like more than three quarters of the European Union member states.

So it is not “the Finns”, rather “the French”, perhaps.

But then, Finns even believe they have invented tango, and they never heard of Argentina, the poor illiterate drunken barbarians, so…

The law is that the spouse gets half and the children get half.

Where did you find such info that spuse would get nothing?

Only if the spouses were already divorced it could be that children get all.

What T wrote is good stuff. Note the parents can make their will conditional upon the children’s exercise of the right to legal share upon the death of the first parent.

That is, you can put in your will that if the kids exercise of the right to legal share when the first parent dies, they get nothing from the discretionary part of the will of either parent.

This way the kids are incentivized to wait for both parents to die before they demand the inheritance.

Sounds like some sort of automatic prenuptial agreement. That’s a really weird law. But hey, at least they won’t have problems with people who marry just to get an inheritance.

Why do the ‘kids’ feel entitled to anything from the parents? What did they do to earn it? (as was said).

Inheritance leads to a greater inequality in society and should be channeled to benefit all, not just the lucky.