Inheritance and cryptocurrencies in Argentina: You can now inherit Bitcoin
Cryptocurrencies are already shining in successions, and Argentina’s civil courts are now contemplating it. In this case. It was the Civil and Commercial Court number Nine of La Matanza, in the Province of Buenos Aires.
Although cryptocurrencies in Argentina do not yet have substantive regulation, tax rules have been issued for the consequent collection of taxes; Resolutions and communications of general information and alert to users, by the Central Bank of the Republic and AFIP, and novelly some regulations in the civil field by the courts regarding successions, and implicitly already in the contractual field, operations with cryptocurrencies are already being common in the commercial field and even documented even in the notarial field.
The purpose of successions is: on the one hand, to identify the successors of the deceased. In the first place, the descendants may be, if there are none, the ascendants take their place, or in the last stage the collaterals in the case of having a family. Otherwise, if a person has no family, the state can keep that “vacant” inheritance.
On the other hand, the content of the inheritance, i.e. the estate of the deceased, must be determined. When we talk about the patrimony, we must know that it is made up of: credits (what that deceased person still has in favor), debts, legacies and charges, accounting and delivering goods: furniture, real estate, as well as cryptocurrencies among others.
The civil and commercial registry number 9 of Lomas de Zamora, took a big step by regulating and establishing the property requirements that must be accredited in the case that cryptocurrencies are reported. The procedure is as follows:
- Report by means of an affidavit the type, type and quantity of cryptoassets (Cryptocurrency – Token – NFT).
- Type of wallet, broker or exchange in which they are deposited.
- Submit in writing and in a sealed envelope the seed phrase or private key of the wallet if so. Or username and password of the Broker or Exchange.
- Written submission indicating the will of all heirs on how to distribute the digital assets.
This undoubtedly generates a new recognition and progress in the field. Although the condition of handing over the private key to a court seems to be abusive, it could be considered that it is so that all the heirs can obtain their real or corresponding percentage for the consideration of a judge in the event of not reaching a distribution agreement. But there could also be a situation where the heirs do not have the private key. Or even that they don’t want to hand it over. The court has not yet ruled on how it would handle such situations.