The concept of inheritance is not explicitly defined in the Civil Code. However, the provisions of Book 4, entitled 'Inheritance', show that the estate is the sum of the rights and obligations which the testator had at the time of his death. However, it is worth emphasizing the criteria that these rights and obligations must meet in order to be in the estate. First of all, they must have a civil law nature - this means that they cannot result from administrative, criminal or legal-financial relations. In addition, they must be of a financial nature and may not be closely connected with the person of the testator. Therefore, this collection does not include, inter alia, the rights and obligations of the deceased, such as: maintenance obligations, entitlement to maintenance, personal copyright, easements, claims for compensation for harm suffered. The provisions of the Civil Code also provide that the estate does not include any rights that at the time of death of the testator pass to strictly designated persons, regardless of whether they are heirs. It can be money from bank accounts that are to be transferred to people outside the group of heirs after the death of the testator.

The inheritance thus formed is subject to statutory or testamentary inheritance.