Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2024:938
Date: 2024-11-07
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Fifth Chamber
Subject matter: Area of freedom, security and justice;Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Germany

Anonymised version 
Translation C-291/23 – 1 
Case C-291/23 [Hantoch] 1 
Request for a preliminary ruling 
Date lodged: 
8 May 2023 
Referring court: 
Landgericht Düsseldorf (Germany) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
27 April 2023 
Applicant: 
LS 
Defendant: 
PL 
  
[…] 
Landgericht Düsseldorf (Germany) 
Order 
In the case 
of Ms LS, […] Düsseldorf, 
applicant, 
[…] 
 
1 The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any party to the proceedings. 
[…] 
EN 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 27. 4. 2023 – CASE C-291/23 
 
2  
Anonymised version 
against 
Mr PL, […], […] Düsseldorf, 
defendant, 
[…] 
on 27 April 2023 
the 1st Civil Chamber of the Landgericht Düsseldorf (Regional Court, Düsseldorf, 
Germany) 
[…] 
ordered: 
The following question is referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union 
for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU: 
Must an interpretation of Article 10 of the EU Succession Regulation with 
regard to the question whether any estate assets existed in the Member State 
of the court seised be based on the time of the succession or on the time 
when the action was filed? 
[…] 
Reasons: 
I. 
The parties are descendants of the deceased (‘the deceased’) who died on 
18 March 2017. The defendant is the sole heir of the deceased on the basis of a 
notarised will dated 13 May 2015. The deceased was born in Egypt and lived and 
worked for many years in Germany, where he also started a family. He held both 
German and Egyptian citizenship. After retiring, the deceased resided mainly in 
Egypt, where he also died. During this time, however, he was still covered by 
German health insurance and was entitled to a pension in Germany. He transferred 
any payments thereunder to his Egyptian account via an account […] maintained 
solely for this purpose. Due to the receipt of his pension under the German 
insurance fund for physicians, he was also liable to pay tax in Germany. At the 
time of the deceased's death, there was a credit balance in an account at Apo 
Bank, which, however, had already been closed at the time the action was filed. 
The applicant brings claims for information and payment against the defendant 
[…] with regard to a claim for a compulsory share of the deceased’s estate. She 
argues that the Landgericht Düsseldorf (Regional Court, Düsseldorf, Germany) 
has international jurisdiction. According to the applicant, at the time of the 
succession, the deceased had held assets in Germany, in addition to the credit 
[…] 
HANTOCH 
 
3 
Anonymised version 
balance at Apo Bank in particular, in the form of tax refund claims against the tax 
authorities and claims against the private health insurance provider. 
The defendant argues that the court does not have international jurisdiction. 
II. 
Pursuant to Article 4 of the EU Succession Regulation, international jurisdiction is 
based on where the deceased had his or her habitual residence at the time of his or 
her death. According to the known facts of the case and status of the dispute, it 
can be assumed that this habitual residence is located in Egypt. […] 
The deceased was born in Egypt, lived and worked in Germany for many years 
and also started a family here. It is undisputed that he had German and Egyptian 
citizenship, and the applicant did not argue in a substantiated manner that, or 
when, he should have given up his Egyptian citizenship. After his retirement, the 
deceased resided mainly in Egypt. He was still covered by German health 
insurance and was entitled to a pension in Germany. He continued, by way of a 
continuous standing order, to transfer these benefits to his Egyptian account via an 
account at Apo Bank, which was maintained solely for that purpose. Because he 
received his pension under the German insurance fund for physicians, he was also 
liable to pay tax in Germany. However, there is nothing in the above or other 
factors to suggest that the centre of the deceased’s interests was in Germany at the 
time of death. The fact that the deceased was registered in Düsseldorf is not, in the 
opinion of the court, sufficient. In the opinion of the court […], the fact that the 
deceased no longer maintained a home […] can be derived from the annex […], in 
which the former landlord stated that he did not have the deceased’s new address 
and asked for the mail to be forwarded. In addition, the fact that he also kept the 
address of the defendant’s surgery as a contact address also does not establish a 
centre of his interests in Germany. The applicant has not shown that the deceased 
had any movable or immovable assets in Germany apart from the account at Apo 
Bank and his health insurance and pension scheme at the German Medical 
Association. The applicant also does not explain how regularly the deceased 
stayed in Germany and what contact he had with his family. Against this 
background, it must be assumed on the basis of the information provided by the 
defendant that he initially visited Germany once a year after retiring, but has not 
been in Germany since 2015. 
Subsidiary international jurisdiction under Article 10 of the EU Succession 
Regulation is based on where the assets of the estate are situated; according to the 
general view, the jurisdiction of the court seised in each case extends only to the 
estate assets situated in the Member State in question, which means that there is a 
risk of a fragmentation of the estate or procedural split of the estate […]. 
With regard to Article 10(a) of the EU Succession Regulation, it is disputed which 
point in time must be referred to in order to assess whether ‘assets belonging to 
the estate are located in the Member State’. In this respect, both the view that the 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 27. 4. 2023 – CASE C-291/23 
 
4  
Anonymised version 
time of death is decisive […] and the view that the time of the filing of the action 
is decisive […] are held. 
III. 
The answer to this question is of considerable relevance for the determination of 
the scope of jurisdiction of the court in the present dispute, because the assets 
situated in Germany as a Member State consisted of an account balance at Apo 
Bank which existed at the time of the succession, but which had already been 
closed at the time the action was filed. 
[…]