Marriage contract as an instrument of transformation of the regime of common joint property of spouses in inheritance legal relations

Abstract

Purpose of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the marriage contract as an instrument of transformation of the regime of common joint property of spouses in projection onto inheritance legal relations, identifying the limits of contractual autonomy and conceptualizing a three-level typology of such influence with the formulation of proposals for improving Articles 93–97 of the Family Code of Ukraine and the Law «On Notary». Methods of the research include the dogmatic method for analyzing the current legislation of Ukraine in the sphere of the marriage contract and common property of spouses, the comparative legal method for comparing the approaches of Poland, Germany, and France to the correlation of statutory and contractual property regimes of spouses, the system-structural method for constructing a three-level typology of projections, and the method of legal forecasting for formulating proposals on harmonization of national legislation with the law of the European Union. Results of the research consist in revealing the conceptual and categorical apparatus that outlines the correlation of the marriage contract with the agreement on the division of property and the spousal will; in formulating a proprietary conceptual category of the temporal dualism of the marriage contract, which describes the simultaneous unfolding of its action in the inter vivos horizon and in the mortis causa horizon; in identifying the mechanisms of transformation of the regime from partial redistribution of shares to complete exclusion of property from the sphere of commonality; in constructing a three-level typology of projections onto the inheritance mass (increasing, decreasing, and liquidating types), each of which forms a special algorithm for the work of a notary; in comparing the national approach with EU Regulations 2016/1103 and 650/2012, which introduced an interconnected jurisdictional architecture for matrimonial property regimes and cross-border succession. Conclusions include substantiating the need to supplement Articles 93 and 97 of the Family Code of Ukraine with norms on inheritance consequences of contractual modification of the regime, harmonizing Article 71 of the Law «On Notary» with Article 97 of the Family Code regarding the special procedure for allocating a share in common property under the contractually established regime, creating a Unified Register of Marriage Contracts as an infrastructural prerequisite for reliable establishment of the property regime in inheritance proceedings, and substantiating the need to develop a national model aligned with the European architecture of concentration of jurisdiction.