Most foreign owners arrive in Montenegro with a plan already built somewhere else. A contract of inheritance signed before an Austrian or German notary. Mutual wills drawn in England or Denmark, in which each spouse promises not to change theirs after the first death. An agreement among adult children about who takes the coast house.
Montenegro's Law on Inheritance (Zakon o nasljeđivanju, "Official Gazette of Montenegro" no. 074/08 of 5 December 2008, 152 articles) does not merely decline to enforce those arrangements. It declares them null — in three consecutive articles that most foreign advisers never reach.
This page is about what you can do while you are alive. It is not about who inherits if you do nothing, which we cover in who inherits in Montenegro, nor about the paperwork after a death, which is in the gap between inheriting and owning. Both statutes below were read on 30 August 2026.
The three arrangements that are void
| What you may have | Montenegrin position | Article |
|---|---|---|
| A contract of inheritance — you agree to leave your estate, or part of it, to the other party or a third person | Null | Inheritance Act art. 121 |
| A contract disposing of an inheritance you hope to receive, any contract about the estate of a person still alive, or about a legacy from an estate not yet opened | Null | art. 122 |
| A contract binding you to put a clause in your will, leave it out, revoke it, or not revoke it | Null | art. 123 |
Art. 121 is the Erbvertrag provision: a contract by which someone leaves their estate or a part of it to their co-contractor or to a third person is null.
Art. 122 covers the family agreement made in advance. A contract by which someone alienates an inheritance they hope for is null, as is any contract concerning the inheritance of a third person who is still alive, and any contract about a legacy or other benefit expected from an estate that has not yet opened. The well-meaning arrangement among siblings about what will happen to a living parent's house falls squarely inside this.
🔴 Art. 123 is the one that catches English, Irish, Danish and German couples. A contract by which someone undertakes to insert a provision in their will or not to insert it, or to revoke a provision or not to revoke it, is null. That undertaking is precisely the mechanism that makes mutual wills mutual: the survivor's promise not to change course after the first death. Strip the promise out and what remains is two ordinary wills, each freely revocable. If your plan depends on the survivor being bound, it does not bind in Montenegro.
A short clarification, because the terms get mixed up. Mirror wills — two separate, similar wills with no binding promise — are unaffected by art. 123, because there is no contract to void. It is the binding agreement, not the similarity of the documents, that art. 123 strikes down.
What a will can and cannot reach
A will still works, within a ceiling. Art. 27 makes the deceased's descendants, spouse, adoptees and their descendants, parents and adopters forced heirs; grandparents and siblings qualify only if permanently unfit for work and without the necessary means of subsistence. Under art. 27(3), all of them are forced heirs only when they are called to the succession under the statutory order.
Art. 28 then fixes the size: the forced share of descendants, adoptees and their descendants, and the spouse is one half, and of the other forced heirs one third, of the share each of them would receive under the statutory order of succession. That is a two-step calculation — first the intestate share, then the fraction of it — and it is not a fraction of the estate. The remainder is the disposable part, which the testator may leave as they wish.
One drafting lever is worth knowing. Art. 29 gives a forced heir a portion of every thing and right in the estate, but the testator may direct that the forced share be satisfied in a specific thing, right, or in money — the ordinary means of preventing a single apartment from fracturing into co-ownership among several heirs.
Instrument one: transfer and distribution during life
The Law on Obligations (Zakon o obligacionim odnosima, nos. 47/08, 4/11, 22/17, 123/24) supplies the two contracts that actually do the work of lifetime planning. The first is ustupanje i raspodjela imovine za života — transfer and distribution of property during life, arts. 1063 to 1074.
Art. 1063 — an ancestor (the transferor) undertakes to transfer their property to their descendants during life, without consideration.
The conditions are strict, and each one is a way the arrangement fails:
- 🔴 Art. 1064(1) — the contract is valid only if all the transferor's descendants who would be called to inherit have consented. A descendant who did not consent may consent later (1064(2)), and the contract survives if that descendant predeceases the transferor without issue, renounces, is excluded, or is unworthy (1064(3)).
- 🔴 Art. 1065(1) — written form and notarial certification, and before certifying, the notary must read the contract to the parties and specifically warn them that the transferred property does not enter the transferor's estate and that forced heirs cannot be satisfied out of it. The notary confirms on the contract itself that this was done (1065(2)), and a contract made contrary to those requirements is null (1065(3)).
- Art. 1066 — the contract may cover only property existing at the time of the transfer, in whole or in part (1066(1)); a clause purporting to distribute assets that will be found in the estate is null (1066(2)); and the transferred property does not enter the estate (1066(3)).
The consequence of getting consent wrong is the interesting part. Under art. 1068(1), where a descendant who becomes an heir did not consent, the parts transferred to the others are treated as gifts — which returns them to the forced-share calculation the arrangement was meant to settle. Art. 1068(2) applies the same treatment if a child is later born to the transferor, or an heir previously declared dead reappears.
Two protections sit alongside it. Art. 1069(1) lets the transferor reserve, for themselves, their spouse or same-sex life partner, or both, or another person, a right of use over all or some of the transferred assets, or contract a life annuity in kind or money, lifetime support, or other consideration — the civil-law equivalent of retaining a life interest. Where usufruct or an annuity is agreed for the transferor and spouse together and one dies, it passes in full to the other for life unless otherwise agreed (1069(2)).
And art. 1070(2) is the limit nobody should plan around: if the spouse is not included in the transfer, their right to a forced share remains intact, and in valuing the estate to determine it, the parts transferred to the descendants are treated as gifts.
Finally, art. 1071(1) provides that the descendants are not liable for the transferor's debts unless otherwise agreed, while art. 1071(2) lets the transferor's creditors challenge the contract under the rules for challenging gratuitous dispositions. And art. 1073 allows the transferor to demand the return of everything given where a descendant has shown gross ingratitude, or fails to provide support or to pay debts as the contract required.
Instrument two: the lifetime support contract
The second is ugovor o doživotnom izdržavanju, arts. 1075 to 1086 — and it is structurally different, because nothing passes now.
Art. 1075(1) — one party (the provider) undertakes to support the other, or a third person, until death, and that party undertakes to give all or part of their property, with the acquisition of the things and rights deferred to the moment of the recipient's death. Only things and rights existing at conclusion may be included (1075(2)). Unless otherwise agreed, the support obligation covers housing, food, clothing and footwear, appropriate care in illness and old age, medical costs and everyday needs (1075(3)).
The formalities mirror the first instrument. Art. 1076(1) requires written form and notarial certification, with the notary obliged to read the contract and specifically warn the recipient that the property is not part of their estate and that forced heirs cannot be satisfied out of it; the notary confirms this on the contract (1076(2)); a contract made otherwise is null (1076(3)).
Three provisions then decide whether it survives contact with reality:
- 🔴 Art. 1077 — the contract is null where the provider is a natural or legal person who cares for the recipient in the course of their profession or activity — medical staff, hospitals, various agencies — unless the consent of the competent guardianship authority was obtained beforehand. An elderly owner who signs over property to a carer or care agency without that consent has signed a void contract.
- 🔴 Art. 1084(1) — on the application of the recipient's statutory heirs, the court may annul the contract if, because of the recipient's illness or age, the contract involved no uncertainty for the provider. The instrument is meant to be a genuine gamble on lifespan; where it plainly was not, it can be undone. Art. 1084(2) gives the heirs one year from learning of the contract, and at the latest three years from the recipient's death, and under 1084(3) the one-year period cannot begin before death.
- Art. 1085(1) — on the provider's death the obligations pass to their spouse or same-sex life partner and the descendants called to inherit, if they consent; if they do not, the contract terminates and they cannot claim compensation for support already given (1085(2)). Where they are unable to take over, art. 1086 lets them seek compensation from the recipient, fixed by the court on a free assessment.
One practical step is easy to miss: art. 1080(1) allows the provider to secure the right by entry in the public register. Without that entry the property remains exposed to what the recipient does with it in the meantime.
And ordinary gifts
Outright gifts are not a neutral alternative. Art. 48 of the Inheritance Act counts into each statutory heir's share everything they received from the deceased as a gift, in any manner. Fruits and other benefits enjoyed from the gifted thing until the death are not counted. Crucially, the gift is not counted if the deceased declared — at the time of the gift, later, or in the will — that it should not be, or if that intention follows from the circumstances. Art. 50 then performs the accounting by giving the other heirs corresponding value out of the estate first, and dividing only the remainder; where the estate is insufficient, the heir who received the gift is not obliged to return anything.
| Transfer and distribution | Lifetime support contract | |
|---|---|---|
| When property passes | On conclusion | Deferred to the recipient's death — art. 1075(1) |
| Who may receive | Descendants — art. 1063 | Any contracting provider, subject to art. 1077 |
| Consent required | All descendants called to inherit — art. 1064(1) | Not required from heirs |
| Form | Written + notarial certification with statutory warning — art. 1065 | Written + notarial certification with statutory warning — art. 1076 |
| Enters the estate | No — art. 1066(3) | No — the property is outside it |
| Main way it fails | A descendant did not consent → parts treated as gifts — art. 1068(1) | No real uncertainty for the provider → annulment on the heirs' application — art. 1084(1) |
| Spouse's forced share | Remains intact if not included — art. 1070(2) | Governed by the general rules |
A note on which text this is
The Law on Inheritance is commonly cited as 74/2008 alone. That is incomplete. A published consolidation gives the citation line as "Official Gazette of Montenegro" nos. 074/08 of 05.12.2008 and 075/17 of 09.11.2017 — and 075/17 is not an amending statute. It is a decision of the Constitutional Court of Montenegro, U-I no. 22/14 of 20 September 2017, which is why sources that look only for izmjene i dopune report the law as never amended.
We read the full text of the original 074/08 promulgation. We were not able to obtain, from any free source, a complete consolidation incorporating the 2017 decision, nor to establish which provision that decision concerned. None of the articles relied on here appeared in a form suggesting they had been struck, but that is an absence of contrary evidence rather than confirmation. Where an article number decides your position, it should be checked against the gazette layer, including 075/17.
What none of this changes
Two things sit outside every instrument above.
Neither contract alters where the estate is dealt with when Montenegrin immovable property is involved, or how a foreign document is received by the cadastre — that is a jurisdiction and recognition question, addressed in inheriting Montenegro property and your EU paperwork and, for the Turkish side, in one estate, two codes.
And neither removes the forced share as a matter of principle. Both statutory warnings — arts. 1065(1) and 1076(1) — exist precisely because the legislature expects the parties to understand that consequence before signing, and both instruments carry their own counterweights in arts. 1068, 1070(2) and 1084. A plan built on the assumption that forced heirs will simply never appear is a plan with a one-year clock attached to it.
Before you sign anything here
If you already hold a contract of inheritance, mutual wills, or a family agreement about a living parent's property, the first question is not whether it is a good plan. It is whether arts. 121 to 123 leave anything of it standing in respect of your Montenegrin assets.
Send us the existing instruments, the family tree, and a list of what you own in Montenegro before you sign a Montenegrin contract or ask a notary to certify one — the consent requirement in art. 1064(1) and the guardianship consent in art. 1077 are both things that cannot be repaired afterwards. Our work on wealth management and structuring starts there. Related reading: residence permit and tax residence are not the same thing and limitation periods.
