In a judgment dated 1 October 2026, the Barcelona Provincial Court valued Adela’s estate at €59,996,905.80 net after reviewing the family companies. The case hinged on which region’s succession law applied, a question determined by Adela’s civil residence when she died.
The court ruled for Darío, Adela’s son and the principal beneficiary of her will, applying Navarrese foral law rather than Catalan law. Under the Navarrese rules described in the judgment, the legítima is symbolic and does not guarantee an economic share of the estate. The grandchildren’s claim for more than €3.2 million in legítimas was rejected.
Adela died in February 2019 and had four children. Her will left Darío the family business shares. He also received land and a property in Pamplona. Two of Adela’s daughters renounced the inheritance, after which their seven descendants, all grandchildren, went to court.
A court in Granollers had initially recognised more than €3.2 million in legítimas for the grandchildren, along with additional amounts under the cuarta falcidia. That provision can secure a minimum share for an heir in other legal systems. The Barcelona court ruled it did not apply to this succession.
The declaration in Pamplona
Adela’s civil residence determined whether Navarrese or Catalan succession law governed her estate. In April 1980, after establishing two years of residence in Navarra, she declared at Pamplona’s Civil Registry that she wished to acquire Navarrese civil residence. The document was not registered in Caldes de Montbuí until 2021, but the appeals court considered the declaration valid from the date she made it.
The grandchildren argued that the change had been used to avoid Catalan law and harm their inheritance rights. The court found insufficient evidence of fraud and said documents supported Adela’s residence in Pamplona. It therefore applied Navarrese law to the succession.
