2026 guide for heirs who live abroad

Heirs Who Disagree: How to Unblock an Inheritance in Portugal

What one heir can do alone, how to get out by selling your share, and how to force the division when the others won’t sign, from abroad.

Any heir: can demand the division of the estate, at any time
No agreement: an inventory, at a notary or in court, divides it anyway
Each heir: needs a Portuguese NIF for the declaration and the division

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Updated 29 October 2026 · By Brenda Lins Brito

A weathered red house with peeling plaster and an old wooden door on a cobbled street in Portugal

A bunch of old iron keys hanging on a wooden chest

In Portugal, an inheritance stays undivided until the heirs share it out, and while it is undivided almost every decision needs all of them: selling the house, sharing out the land, closing the accounts. One brother who won’t sign, one cousin who never answers, and everything stops. But Portuguese law gives every heir a way out: no one can be made to stay in an undivided estate. Whichever way you take, each heir is named by a Portuguese tax number, the NIF: you can get your NIF online without travelling.

This guide covers what you can do alone, the heir who runs the estate, selling your share, forcing the division, what it costs, and what changes when the deceased lived in France. For the whole inheritance, the tax and the deadline in dates, see inheritance tax in Portugal for heirs abroad.

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Table of contents13

Disagreements in 6 numbers
Are you ready?
Why one heir can block it
What you can do alone
The cabeça de casal
The 7 steps from abroad
Sell your share, or step out
Forcing the division
Meanwhile, the estate pays
Buying out a co-heir
The 2026 law
When the deceased lived in France
Frequently asked questions

Heirs who disagree in Portugal in 6 numbers (2026)

1 heiris enough to demand the division, at any time
3 monthsto declare the death to the tax office, agreement or not
2 monthsfor co-heirs to match an outsider’s offer for your share
€0income tax on selling your share of the undivided estate
2 yearsundivided, and one heir may ask a court to sell: a 2026 law, not yet in force
1 NIF per heirthe declaration and the division list them all

Can you unblock it? The 30-second check

The death is declared to the tax office, or will be by the end of the third month after the month of death: agreement or not.
Each heir has a Portuguese NIF, or has applied for one: the declaration and the division list them all.
You can prove who the heirs are: a habilitação de herdeiros, or a European Certificate of Succession.
You know what the estate holds: the houses, the land and the accounts, and their tax value.
You know what you want: your share in money, a property, or simply out.

Yes to all five? You can propose a division, sell your share, or start an inventory.

Not sure who inherits, or which country’s law applies? See which law decides, or ask us in a free call.

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One NIF per heir, from abroad. From €99.

Why can one heir block the whole inheritance?

Until the division (the partilha), the estate belongs to all the heirs together, without anyone owning a given room or field: it is a herança indivisa, an undivided estate. Portuguese law says its rights can only be exercised by all the heirs together, apart from the day-to-day running left to the cabeça de casal, the heir who administers it. So:

Selling the house needs every heir’s signature.
A division by agreement, at a notary or at IRN’s Balcão das Heranças, needs every heir to agree.
The cabeça de casal may sell only what would spoil, or crops to pay the funeral and the running costs: not the house.

Heirs may agree to keep the estate undivided, but for five years at most, renewable. Without such an agreement, any heir may demand the division whenever they like, and no one can give up that right.

What you can do without the other heirs

More than most heirs think. None of these needs a co-heir’s signature:

Declare the death to the tax office (the participação, on the Modelo 1), by the end of the third month after the month of death. The law puts that duty on the cabeça de casal and on every heir; once the cabeça de casal files and names every heir, the others are freed of it. Late or never filed, the fine is €150 to €3,750. If the cabeça de casal does nothing, ask the tax office, through its e-balcão, how to file it yourself.
Get your own NIF, which the declaration, a division deed and an inventory all ask for: apply online.
Prove who the heirs are. A notarial habilitação de herdeiros is declared by three witnesses, or by the cabeça de casal: no co-heir has to sign it.
Find the accounts. Banco de Portugal tells any heir, free, in which banks the deceased had accounts: see the deceased’s bank account in Portugal.
Ask the cabeça de casal for accounts every year, and for your part of up to half of the estate’s income, a rent for instance.
Identify the family land on BUPi, the national land register, with the estate’s NIF.
Sell your share, or renounce it (below).
Demand the division, through an inventory if the others won’t agree (below).

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The cabeça de casal: who runs the estate, and how to replace them

The cabeça de casal administers the estate until it is divided. The law sets who: the surviving spouse first, then the executor of a will, then the closest heirs by law, the one who lived with the deceased for at least a year first, then the eldest. All the heirs together may hand the role to anyone else.

What they must do

Give accounts every year, and share out any surplus.
Share out up to half of the income to any heir who asks, unless it is needed for the estate’s costs.
Pay the estate’s taxes, such as the yearly property tax, in its name.

When they can be removed

Any heir may ask for their removal, if they:

hid assets of the estate, or gifts the deceased made, on purpose;
don’t run the estate with prudence and care;
don’t do what the law asks of them in an inventory;
prove unable to do the job.

An heir who hides an asset of the estate on purpose, cabeça de casal or not, loses their right to it, to the other heirs’ benefit.

Unblocking an inheritance in Portugal from abroad: the 7 steps

Start with what needs no one’s agreement, then try the division by agreement before the inventory. Most steps can be done for you, with a power of attorney.

1
Get a Portuguese NIF for each heir
The tax declaration, a division deed, the sale of a share and an inventory all name each heir by their NIF. From abroad, it is the step that takes longest: start it now.
Week 1One per heir
Get my NIF
2
Declare the death to the tax office
By the end of the third month after the month of death, even when no tax is due and even if the heirs disagree. The cabeça de casal files; the duty is every heir’s until they do.
By the end of month 3
3
Prove who the heirs are
A habilitação de herdeiros, at a notary or at IRN’s Balcão das Heranças: three witnesses or the cabeça de casal declare it. When the deceased lived in another EU country, a European Certificate of Succession issued there also works.
After the NIFs
4
List what the estate holds, and its value
The properties and their tax value (on each one’s caderneta predial), the land, the accounts. The declaration to the tax office already lists them: ask the cabeça de casal for a copy.
Month 3 onwards
5
Propose a division in writing
Who takes what, and who pays the others the difference. If everyone agrees, IRN’s Balcão das Heranças can do the habilitação, the division and the registration in a day, for €425.
When everyone agrees€425 at IRN
Translate my documents
6
No agreement? Sell your share, or start an inventory
Sell your share to a co-heir or to anyone (the co-heirs may match an outsider’s offer), or ask a lawyer to start an inventory, at a notary or in court.
When someone won’t sign
7
Register the division
Each property in its new owner’s name at the land registry, within two months of the division, or the fee doubles.
Within two months

Day 0the death
Week 1each heir’s NIF
By the end of month 3the declaration, agreement or not
Thenthe habilitação and the list of assets
When everyone agreesthe division, in a day
When someone won’tyour share sold, or an inventory

The deadline in dates, and what each heir pays: see the 3-month deadline.

You don’t have to wait for the others to agree on everything. Your share of the undivided estate, the quinhão hereditário, is yours to sell, as a whole.

Selling your share

To a co-heir or to anyone else. When the estate holds a property, the sale is made by a deed or an authenticated document, which you can sign through a power of attorney.
Co-heirs come first: if you sell to an outsider, the other heirs may buy it on the same terms. Once told of the offer, they have two months to say so.
No income tax for you: since July 2025, the tax office no longer taxes the sale of a share of an undivided estate as a gain, even when the estate is only property. Selling the house itself is taxed: see selling the inherited house.
The buyer pays IMT, the property transfer tax, on the property in the share they buy.

Renouncing

If you want nothing from the estate, you can refuse it (the repúdio): the whole inheritance, with no conditions, and for good, by a deed or an authenticated document when there is property. Your own children may then inherit in your place. Renouncing brings you nothing; selling your share brings you its price.

No agreement: forcing the division through an inventory

When the heirs don’t all agree, the law says the estate is divided by an inventário, an inventory. Any heir may start it, and chooses where: at a notary or in court. Started at a notary without everyone’s agreement, it moves to court if heirs holding more than half of the estate ask.

How it runs

The list of assets. The cabeça de casal lists everything the estate holds, each property at its tax value, within 30 days of being summoned.
Objections. The other heirs have 30 days to contest the list: a missing asset, a debt that isn’t one. An heir found to have hidden an asset loses their right to it.
The shares. The judge, or the notary, settles the disputes and fixes each heir’s share.
The conference of heirs. First, an agreement is sought: who takes what, a draw, or selling everything and sharing out the price. A decision of the heirs present binds those duly summoned who stay away.
The bidding. Without agreement, the heirs bid against each other for each asset, as at an auction. What no one bids for is shared out by drawing lots, or given to several heirs together.
The judge’s approval. A judge approves the division, even when a notary ran the inventory. Whoever took more than their share pays the others the difference; if they don’t, the others can have the assets sold.

From abroad

You don’t have to travel: you can be represented by a lawyer or anyone with special powers, or entrust another heir. A lawyer is compulsory only to argue a point of law or to appeal; in a real dispute, each heir should have their own.

What it costs

The court’s fees and the notaries’ follow a scale by the value of the estate, its property counted at its tax value: €918 for an estate of €100,000 and €1,938 for €300,000, plus 23% VAT at a notary. The heirs pay them in the end in proportion to what each receives. On top: valuations, other expenses, and each heir’s lawyer, whose fees no official scale sets. Ask the notary for their figure before you start.

How long it takes

No official statistic gives the length of an inventory. When the list of assets is contested, the deadlines the law sets for each step alone add up to more than four months, before any valuation, hearing or appeal.

Try a mediator first

Portugal’s public family mediation service, the Sistema de Mediação Familiar, takes any conflict arising within a family, in person or by video, for €50 per party whatever the number of sessions. Its list of examples doesn’t name inheritances: ask it before you file. Both sides must agree to take part.

Meanwhile, the undivided estate keeps paying

A disagreement doesn’t stop the bills. Until the division:

IMI: the yearly property tax is owed by the estate, through the cabeça de casal: see the Portuguese tax calendar for its dates.
AIMI: above €600,000 of residential property, an undivided estate pays 0.7% a year, unless the heirs share it out on paper: the cabeça de casal declares the heirs and shares in March, each heir confirms in April, every year.
Rent: each heir declares their share of the rent in their own Portuguese tax return: see our Portuguese income tax filing.
Rural land: plots neither identified on BUPi nor registered can end up provisionally registered in the State’s name.

Buying out a brother or sister, or selling the house

One heir takes the house and pays the others

The most common way out. In the division, one heir takes the house and pays the others the difference in money (the tornas). The heir who takes more than their share of the property pays IMT, the property transfer tax, on the part above their own share, at the rate for buying that kind of property, on its tax value or the value used in the division, whichever is higher. For the rates, see buying a house in Portugal as a foreigner, and book a tax consultation before you sign.

Selling the house to an outsider

Every heir signs the sale, and each one declares their part of the gain, measured from the value at the death: see selling the inherited house.

Already divided, but owned together

If the division left a house to several of you in shares, you are now co-owners, and the same principle holds: no co-owner has to stay in co-ownership. Any of you may ask a court to divide the house or, if it can’t be split, to give it to one of you or sell it and share out the price.

The 2026 law: a court sale after two years

Portugal is changing the rules for blocked estates. A law of 17 August 2026 authorises the Government to create an urgent court process in which a single heir, the surviving spouse or an executor can have a property of an undivided estate sold: two years after the death, or at once if an inventory has been started. The law sets out:

a price set by the court from valuations when the heirs disagree on it, and a new valuation when two differ by more than 20%;
a sale preferably by electronic auction;
the heirs’ and the spouse’s right to take the property at the price the sale reached, ahead of anyone else’s right of preference;
no sale when the heirs have agreed to keep the estate undivided, nor of the family home the surviving spouse has a right to, without their consent.

The same law allows the Government to let a simple majority of the heirs hand the running of the estate to someone else (unless the cabeça de casal is the surviving spouse), to require the cabeça de casal to start the division within a set time, and to cut the time to accept an inheritance from 10 years to 2.

Not in force yet. The Government has approved the decree-law, but on 29 October 2026 it was not yet published in the Diário da República. The law asks that it apply to every estate not yet divided when it comes into force. Until then, the inventory is the way to force a division.

When the deceased lived in France

The case we hear about most: a Portuguese parent who lived in France, a house kept in the home village. For a death since 17 August 2015, EU law changes two things:

French law usually governs the whole inheritance, the Portuguese house included, and with it how the estate is divided.
French courts can rule on the whole inheritance, the Portuguese house included, and their decisions are recognised in Portugal without any procedure.

So a French judge can settle a disagreement over the Portuguese house too. What stays Portuguese: the declaration to the Portuguese tax office, with every heir’s NIF, and the registration of the house in the new owners’ names, which follows Portuguese rules. Thinking of an inventory in Portugal instead? Ask a lawyer first which country’s courts and notaries can hear it. Before anyone signs in France, ask the notary how the deed will be registered in Portugal, and ask for a European Certificate of Succession: it proves who the heirs are in Portugal without any procedure.

How we checked this guide

The rules, amounts and fees in this guide were checked on 29 October 2026 against the law and the official portals:

Código Civil, arts. 1412, 2062–2064, 2079–2096, 2101–2102 and 2124–2130: the undivided estate, the cabeça de casal, the right to the division, selling a share and the co-heirs’ preference, renouncing.
Código de Processo Civil, arts. 925, 1083, 1085, 1090, 1102–1104, 1110–1117, 1122 and 1130: dividing a co-owned thing, the inventory, its steps and who pays its costs; Lei n.º 117/2019, annex (the notarial inventory).
Lei n.º 49/2026 (17 August 2026), art. 2: the court sale of an undivided estate’s property and the other changes authorised; Council of Ministers, communiqué of 22 October 2026: the decree-law approved.
Regulamento das Custas Processuais, art. 6 and Tabela I; Portaria n.º 278/2013 (republished by Portaria n.º 46/2015), art. 18 and Anexo I: the court’s and the notaries’ fees.
DGPJ, Sistema de Mediação Familiar: what it mediates, its price.
Código do Imposto do Selo, art. 26: who declares the death, and when.
Código do IMT, arts. 2(5)(c) and 12(4): IMT on a share sold and on the part above one’s share in a division.
Autoridade Tributária, Ofício Circulado 20281/2025 (25 July 2025): selling one’s share of an undivided estate is not taxed as a gain.
Código do Notariado, arts. 83 and 86: the habilitação by three witnesses or the cabeça de casal; Código do Registo Predial, arts. 8-C and 8-D: registering the division.
gov.pt, “Realizar a Habilitação de Herdeiros, Partilha e Registo dos bens”: IRN’s Balcão das Heranças, its price.
Regulation (EU) No 650/2012, arts. 4, 21, 23 and 39: the court and the law of the last habitual residence, the division, recognition.

This guide explains the rules; it is not legal advice for your situation. In a disagreement, each heir should have their own lawyer.

Frequently asked questions

Can one heir block the sale of an inherited house in Portugal?

Yes, while the estate is undivided: selling a property of the estate needs every heir’s signature. But any heir may demand the division at any time, through an inventory if the others won’t agree, and may sell their own share without the others’ consent.

How do you force the division of an inheritance in Portugal?

With an inventory (inventário), which the law requires when the heirs don’t all agree. The heir who starts it chooses a notary or a court.

Can I sell my share of an inheritance in Portugal without the other heirs?

Yes. Your share of the undivided estate is yours to sell, to a co-heir or to anyone. If you sell to an outsider, the co-heirs may buy it on the same terms within two months of being told.

Do I pay tax if I sell my share of the inheritance?

Not on the gain: since July 2025, the Portuguese tax office no longer taxes the sale of a share of an undivided estate, even one made only of property. The buyer pays IMT on the property in the share.

Who manages an inheritance in Portugal while the heirs disagree?

The cabeça de casal: the surviving spouse, otherwise the closest heir by law, then the eldest. They give accounts every year, and any heir may ask a court to remove them if they hide assets or run the estate badly.

Do we have to declare the death if the heirs disagree?

Yes. The death is declared to the tax office by the end of the third month after the month of death, even when no tax is due. The duty is the cabeça de casal’s and every heir’s, until one of them files.

Can heirs agree to keep an inheritance undivided?

Yes, for five years at most, renewable by a new agreement. Without one, any heir may demand the division whenever they like.

How much does an inventory cost in Portugal?

The court’s and the notaries’ fees follow the estate’s value: €918 for €100,000 and €1,938 for €300,000, plus VAT at a notary, shared by the heirs in proportion to what each receives. Valuations and each heir’s lawyer come on top.

How long does an inventory take in Portugal?

No official statistic says. When the list of assets is contested, the law’s deadlines for each step alone add up to more than four months, before any valuation, hearing or appeal.

Is there a new inheritance law in Portugal in 2026?

A law of 17 August 2026 authorises a court sale of a property kept undivided for two years, at one heir’s request, and a simple majority to replace the cabeça de casal. The Government has approved the decree-law; on 29 October 2026 it was not yet published, so not yet in force.

Can the cabeça de casal be replaced?

Yes: by agreement of all the heirs, or by a court, which any heir may ask, if they hid assets, ran the estate badly or can’t do the job.

What if the deceased lived in France?

French law and French courts usually cover the whole inheritance, the Portuguese house included, and French decisions are recognised in Portugal. The Portuguese tax declaration, with every heir’s NIF, and the registration of the house in Portugal still apply.

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