Joint will is a will made by two or several persons. German legal order regulates joint will in its German Civil Code, but skips a definition. According to the Code, joint will can be made between spouses. However, a joint will can be made when dispositions mortis causa are joint in one document or when there is a different kind of connection between dispositions mortis causa, such as reciprocal dispositions.
The Slovenian Inheritance Act does not regulate joint will. While case law adopted a different approach toward dispositions mortis causa made as joint will during different times. Case law has long since been inclined to a joint will with dispositions mortis causa in favour of third party, whereas in 2001 the Ljubljana Higher Court changed the ruling that held a joint will in which spouses appoint each other as heirs as a priori invalid. The court decided to refrain from refusing validity of testator's dispositions mortis causa. Such testamentary dispositions stay valid if formal requirements of any type of will that is prescribed by the law are fulfilled.
Both legal systems have different view on joint will. From a detailed analysis of regulation of joint will and related legal institutes in German law of inheritance, can be concluded that the Slovenian law of inheritance is not inclined toward the adoption of the institute as regulated in German Civil Code. Though the posibility to adopt joint will is possible with certain adjustments of the institute to the Slovenian inheritance law or eventually with corresponding change of Slovenian inheritance law itself.
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