Concept
Until 2019 Russian succession ran on two tracks only: a one-sided will, or the statutory order of intestate succession. A testator could not strike a deal with an heir, and spouses could not plan together. Federal Law No. 217-FZ, in force since 1 June 2019, borrowed two continental-European tools to close that gap: the inheritance contract (Article 1140.1 of the Civil Code) and the joint will of spouses (Article 1118). Both give a testator more room than the classic will, and neither overrides the forced share.
Inheritance Contract
Unlike a will, the inheritance contract is a bilateral transaction. The testator and a future heir agree on who takes what after death, and the contract can attach reciprocal obligations the heir must perform: to support a named person, to keep a business running, or to preserve a particular asset. It is signed before a notary, who records the signing on video unless the parties refuse. Where the same person leaves both a will and an inheritance contract over the same property, the contract prevails.
Flexibility and Risks
The balance of power is uneven. While alive, the testator keeps the right to sell or give away the very property under contract, and may even withdraw from the contract altogether, compensating the other side for its costs. The heir, by contrast, is bound from the start. That asymmetry makes the instrument useful but delicate: the conditions have to be drafted precisely, or they become the dispute instead of preventing it.
A frequent use is business succession. An owner can pass a company to one child under an inheritance contract while obliging that heir to pay the others a fixed sum or an annuity, keeping the business whole instead of carving it among heirs. See business succession for the wider toolkit.
Joint Will of Spouses
Spouses in a registered marriage can sign a single joint will covering their shared and personal property and setting the order of transfer on the death of each, including their simultaneous death. It suits a coordinated family plan. Its weakness is fragility: it lapses automatically on divorce, and either spouse may revoke it at any time, including the survivor after the first spouse has already died. A notary who certifies a revocation must notify the other spouse while both are alive. A joint will, then, binds no one for long.
Spouses are not confined to the joint will. They can also conclude a joint inheritance contract, which behaves like any inheritance contract and takes precedence where the same couple has also left a will. Because a contract is harder to unpick than a freely revocable joint will, it is often the steadier choice for spouses who want their plan to actually hold.
How the Russian Versions Compare Abroad
Both ideas are imports. Germany has used the inheritance contract (Erbvertrag, §§ 2274-2300 BGB) and the joint spousal will, the familiar Berliner Testament, for more than a century, and there the binding force is real: once the first spouse dies, the survivor is generally locked into the mutual dispositions and cannot quietly rewrite them. On the comparative law see the Max Planck overview of contracts of inheritance and joint wills.
Russia copied the form but kept the binding force low. The survivor under a joint will stays free to revoke it, and the testator under an inheritance contract keeps full control of the assets during life. In practice the Russian versions behave more like a flexible will than the firm, contract-grade commitment of their German models. For planning that needs certainty, that gap is the main thing to weigh.
Cross-Border Cautions
Both instruments operate entirely inside Russian law. Assets located abroad answer to their own succession regimes and conflict-of-laws rules, so a Russian inheritance contract may be ignored or re-characterised by a foreign court. Anyone holding property in several countries should read these documents together with the law applicable to succession and the rules on wills across multiple jurisdictions.
For larger estates the contract or joint will is seldom the whole plan. It usually sits alongside a personal or hereditary foundation or a family holding, and is always tested against the forced share and the default intestate order that applies if the document fails.
What to Choose
A plain will fits most people: one-sided, inexpensive, easy to change. An inheritance contract earns its place when the transfer needs conditions or reciprocal obligations the heir must actually perform. A joint will suits spouses who want one coordinated plan, provided they accept how easily it can be unwound. For sizeable or cross-border estates none of the three stands alone; they are layered with a foundation or family holding and a clear view of succession planning across jurisdictions.