Reserved share (forced heirship portion)

The reserved share is the portion of certain legal heirs' inheritance that the deceased cannot remove through testamentary dispositions or lifetime gifts. Its holders are exhaustively listed: descendants, parents and the surviving spouse; the reserved share of siblings has been abolished.

Each group's reserve is calculated as the statutory fraction of its intestate share, leaving the deceased free to dispose only of the remainder. Wills and appointments of heirs, though valid, are subject to abatement to the extent they infringe the reserves.

The protection is not limited to wills: gifts made during the deceased's lifetime are also drawn into the abatement calculation in the cases listed by statute. A reserved heir may be disinherited only on the statutory grounds, or may relinquish the protection voluntarily through a renunciation agreement.