Joint Will of Spouses: Legal Regulation and Development Prospects in the Russian Federation

Since June 01, 2019, the Civil code of the Russian Federation has introduced a new institution of joint will of spouses for Russian inheritance law, which has shaken the idea of a will as a transaction containing the will of only one person. The need to create this legal institution was due to the development of economic relations and the complication of the mass of the succession. The relevance of this work is that the legal institution of the joint will of spouses is new for Russian executor of law. There is no judicial practice on the issue of the joint will of spouses. Moreover, this institution is not sufficiently studied in the literature. The doctrine deals with certain issues of legal regulation of the joint will of spouses, but there are no comprehensive works related to this institution. However, the number of joint wills of spouses is growing steadily. For example, as of February 17, 2020, 736 joint wills were made in Russia. Insufficient study of the institution of the joint will of spouses can lead to problems in practice. The object of the research is social relations arising from inheritance by the joint will of the spouses. The subject of the study is the legal norms of Russian civil legislation that constitute the institution of the joint will of spouses, domestic and foreign doctrine, as well as the practice of foreign countries. The purpose of the research is to study the features and disadvantages of the legal regulation of the institution of the joint will of spouses, and to develop recommendations aimed at improving the provisions of the civil legislation of the Russian Federation on the joint will of spouses. The structure of the thesis corresponds to its goals and objectives: the study consists of an introduction, three chapters, which together contain 9 paragraphs, conclusion and bibliography. The first Chapter describes the definition of the joint will of spouses, as well as its legal nature. The second Chapter is devoted to the issues of making, canceling and invalidating the joint will of spouses. The third Chapter contains a comparison of the institution of the joint will of spouses with similar institutions.