Why Childless Couples Still Need an Estate Plan
Important Legal Context
This article discusses general principles of Swiss matrimonial and succession law. The outcome of an estate depends on the matrimonial property regime, the family structure, the canton involved, the location of the assets and any existing wills, inheritance contracts, beneficiary designations or corporate agreements.
Under Swiss intestacy rules, a surviving spouse or registered partner generally receives three quarters of the estate when the deceased leaves no descendants, while the remaining quarter passes to the parental line. Parents and siblings no longer benefit from a compulsory share, which gives childless couples considerable scope to protect the surviving spouse through a will or inheritance contract. Unmarried partners, however, have no automatic statutory inheritance entitlement.
Inheritance tax is regulated at cantonal level. Spouses and registered partners are generally exempt, while the treatment of unmarried partners and other beneficiaries varies considerably. Cross-border estates may also be subject to foreign succession, tax and matrimonial-property rules.
Estate planning should therefore be reviewed with qualified Swiss legal and tax advisers before any testamentary arrangement is signed or amended.
Many married couples assume that the surviving spouse will simply receive everything. Under Swiss succession law, that assumption can leave a spouse sharing ownership of a home, investment portfolio or family company with the deceased partner’s parents, siblings or their descendants.
The statutory outcome is clear. Where a married person or registered partner dies without descendants and without a will or contract of succession, the surviving spouse receives three quarters of the estate. The remaining quarter passes to the deceased’s parental line. If both parents have already died, their share generally passes to siblings and, where applicable, to nieces and nephews.
For an estate of CHF 4 million, the difference is CHF 1 million. More importantly, it may create a community of heirs among people whose interests, liquidity needs and understanding of the assets differ considerably.
A holiday property may be emotionally important to one family member and economically inconvenient to another. A concentrated securities portfolio may require timely decisions that the heirs cannot agree on. Shares in an operating company may suddenly sit partly with relatives who have never been involved in the business. The surviving spouse retains a substantial economic interest, but no longer controls the estate alone.
The German rules that often prompt discussion of succession among childless couples do not transfer directly to Switzerland. The underlying risk, however, is much the same: marriage does not automatically make the surviving partner the sole heir. The Swiss solution requires instruments designed for Swiss civil law, the couple’s matrimonial property regime and the location of their assets.
The Estate Begins Before Inheritance Law
The amount that passes through an estate cannot be determined by looking at inheritance law alone. The matrimonial property regime is settled first.
Most Swiss couples who have not agreed otherwise are subject to the ordinary regime of participation in acquired property. Each spouse retains his or her individual property, while the net acquired property accumulated during the marriage is divided according to the applicable rules when the marriage ends through death or divorce. Only after this matrimonial-property settlement is the deceased spouse’s estate established.
The distinction becomes material where substantial wealth has accumulated during the marriage. An investment portfolio may be registered in one name while still containing acquired property. A business may have been established before the marriage but increased significantly in value during it. Real estate may have been financed through a mixture of inheritances, pre-marital capital and income earned during the relationship.
Private banks and portfolio managers can show which accounts are held by whom. They do not necessarily establish the legal provenance of the assets or how matrimonial-property claims will be calculated. Couples with several custodians, inherited assets, corporate interests or properties in different jurisdictions need a consolidated record that distinguishes legal ownership, economic exposure and the origin of the capital.
Without that groundwork, even a carefully drafted will may rest on an inaccurate view of what will eventually form part of the estate.
A Will Can Protect the Surviving Spouse
Swiss law gives individuals considerable freedom where there are no descendants. Since the reform of succession law that entered into force in 2023, parents no longer have a compulsory share. For a childless married person, the spouse or registered partner is therefore generally the only protected heir.
The spouse’s compulsory entitlement amounts to half of the statutory share. Because the statutory share in this constellation is three quarters, the protected minimum is three eighths of the estate. The remaining five eighths are freely disposable.
A testator can consequently allocate the entire estate to the surviving spouse, provided no descendants exist. Parents, siblings, nieces and nephews can be excluded from the succession through a valid testamentary disposition.
This is often the most practical arrangement, particularly where the estate includes the couple’s principal residence or assets intended to finance the survivor’s retirement. It removes the need to negotiate decisions with relatives and reduces the risk that the spouse must sell assets to fund the other heirs’ entitlements.
The decision should nevertheless be made consciously rather than treated as an automatic default. Some couples want part of the first deceased partner’s estate to pass to his or her family, a philanthropic organisation or a particular individual. Others prefer to protect the spouse during life while preserving capital for beneficiaries selected by the first partner. Usufructs, legacies, substitution clauses and contracts of succession can provide greater precision than a simple appointment of the spouse as sole heir.
Switzerland Has No Joint Will in the German Sense
Couples familiar with German estate planning may expect to prepare a single joint document comparable to a Berliner Testament. Swiss law does not offer an equivalent joint will.
Each spouse can make an individual will and coordinate its provisions with the other. Such wills remain unilateral and can generally be changed or revoked by the person who made them. That flexibility can be useful, but it may not provide the certainty the couple expects.
Where the arrangement is intended to bind both parties, a contract of succession is usually the more appropriate instrument. It is executed before a public official with two witnesses and can regulate reciprocal appointments, waivers of compulsory entitlements and the position of beneficiaries after the second death. Unlike a will, it cannot normally be changed unilaterally unless the agreement itself permits this or the parties later consent.
The choice between two coordinated wills and a contract of succession depends partly on how much freedom the survivor should retain.
A couple may initially agree that the estate remaining after the second death should pass to selected relatives in equal proportions. Twenty years later, one of those relatives may no longer be in contact with the surviving spouse, while another may have assumed responsibility for care or administration. A tightly binding arrangement can then preserve an outcome that neither partner would have considered appropriate under the later circumstances.
Binding provisions should therefore be deliberate and selective. They are useful where the first deceased partner wants to secure a destination for family assets, a business interest or inherited property. They can be counterproductive where the couple’s priority is to leave the surviving spouse free to respond to changing relationships, tax rules and financial circumstances.
Unmarried Couples Face a Harder Position
The distinction between marriage and cohabitation remains decisive in Swiss succession law. An unmarried partner is not a statutory heir, regardless of how long the relationship has lasted or whether the couple owns a home together.
Without a will or contract of succession, the surviving partner receives nothing from the deceased’s estate in his or her capacity as partner. The estate instead passes to descendants, the parental line, more distant relatives or ultimately the canton or municipality.
Tax treatment may deepen the difference. Spouses and registered partners are exempt from inheritance tax in every canton. An unmarried partner may face a material cantonal inheritance-tax charge, depending on the deceased’s last residence, the duration and legal recognition of the relationship, and the assets concerned. Movable assets are generally taxed according to the rules of the deceased’s canton of residence, while real estate is taxed where it is situated.
A bequest of CHF 1 million can therefore produce very different net results in Zurich, Zug, Geneva or another canton. Couples should not assume that relocating shortly before retirement, purchasing a second home or changing the ownership of an investment property leaves the estate plan unaffected.
Life insurance and pension arrangements also require separate review. Beneficiary designations do not always follow the will, and occupational-pension or pillar 3a benefits are governed by their own statutory and contractual rules. Naming a partner in one document does not necessarily protect that person across the entire balance sheet.
The Second Death Requires Its Own Decision
Appointing the spouse as sole heir addresses the first death. It does not determine where the combined wealth should eventually go.
For couples without children, that decision is frequently more complex than the initial appointment of the survivor. Potential beneficiaries may include siblings, godchildren, younger relatives, long-standing employees, universities, foundations or charitable organisations. There may also be assets with a particular provenance: a property inherited from one side of the family, shares in a company founded by a parent, or an art collection assembled jointly but financed unequally.
An estate plan should distinguish between the beneficiary after the first death and those who inherit after the second. It should also consider whether the survivor may change the ultimate beneficiaries, consume the capital freely, make substantial gifts or remarry.
Remarriage can alter both the statutory succession and the compulsory-entitlement analysis. A plan that worked for a married couple without descendants may produce a different result once the surviving spouse enters a new marriage or has children. The original documents should not be expected to manage every subsequent family constellation without review.
Complex Assets Need More Than a Handwritten Document
A handwritten will is legally valid in Switzerland when it is written entirely by the testator, dated and signed. This makes testamentary planning accessible, but simplicity of form should not be confused with simplicity of effect.
A sentence such as “My spouse inherits everything” may achieve the central objective in a straightforward domestic estate. It says little about substitute heirs, simultaneous death, predeceased beneficiaries, foreign property, company shares, loans to relatives, digital assets or the appointment of an executor.
The risk increases in internationally structured estates. Nationality, habitual residence, professio juris, foreign real estate and conflicting concepts of matrimonial property may influence which law applies and where proceedings take place. A Swiss resident with British citizenship, a home in Ticino, an apartment in London and portfolios booked in Zurich and Singapore does not have four separate estate plans merely because the assets appear on four statements. The documents and asset structure must operate together.
An executor can provide continuity where the estate includes operating businesses, several banks, illiquid investments or beneficiaries in different countries. The mandate should be assessed against its expected complexity and cost. For a simple estate, appointing a professional executor may add unnecessary expense. For a fragmented cross-border structure, the absence of one can leave the heirs coordinating banks, valuations, tax filings and legal advisers at precisely the moment when decisions are most difficult.
Estate Planning Is an Ownership Exercise
The strongest estate plans begin with an accurate asset map rather than a template will.
The couple should know which assets each partner legally owns, which belong to the matrimonial estate, where they are held, which beneficiary clauses already exist and which assets cannot be transferred solely through a will. They should understand the liquidity available to meet taxes, legacies and property expenses without forcing a sale. Corporate documents, shareholder agreements and foundation rules should be reviewed alongside personal testamentary documents.
The plan then needs to answer several concrete questions. Who controls the assets immediately after the first death? Who benefits after the second? How much freedom should the survivor retain? Which family assets should remain within one branch? What happens if both partners die in the same event? Who acts when beneficiaries disagree or an asset requires an immediate decision?
For childless couples, silence is rarely neutral. It leaves the answers to statutory rules that were designed for a broad population rather than the composition of a particular estate. A will, contract of succession and coherent ownership record replace that default with an outcome the couple has actually chosen.
