How to Plan Your Estate in Puerto Rico, Step by Step

Thinking about your own estate is not thinking about death: it is thinking about the people who remain. When someone dies without having organized anything, the family spends months searching for accounts, deeds and policies, and often arguing about what the person would have wanted. With a few decisions made in time, that road becomes much shorter.

This guide walks through the main pieces of a plan in Puerto Rico: the inventory, the will, insurance and account beneficiaries, the durable power of attorney, medical decisions and the folder for your family.

Step 1: make an inventory of what you own and what you owe

The caudal relicto (the decedent's estate) is the whole of the property, rights and debts a person leaves at death. You can get a lot of the work done ahead of time by preparing a list today of what would make up that estate (see what is a decedent's estate).

Include, at a minimum:

• Real estate: address, cadastral number and whether the property is recorded in your name in the Registro de la Propiedad (Property Registry).
• Accounts: bank or credit union, type of account and whether it is individual or joint.
• Investments and retirement: brokerage firms, retirement accounts and employer plans.
• Life insurance: company, policy number and beneficiaries.
• Vehicles, businesses and ownership interests in corporations or companies.
• Debts: mortgages, loans, credit cards and payment plans with Hacienda or the CRIM.

Note how you acquired each asset. If you are married under the sociedad legal de gananciales (community property regime), half of the community property belongs to your spouse in their own right; only the other half is part of your estate (see community property and inheritance). In addition, when you die, the estate information return filed with the Departamento de Hacienda (Puerto Rico's Treasury) asks for a description of each asset with its identification number, how it was acquired and its tax basis. If you leave that information gathered, your family saves time.

Step 2: understand what you decide and what the law decides

In Puerto Rico you cannot freely divide your entire estate if you have certain close relatives. The legítima (forced share) is the portion the law reserves for the legitimarios (forced heirs): your descendants and your spouse; and, only if you have neither descendants nor a spouse, your parents or other ascendants (Civil Code, Art. 1622).

For people who die on or after November 28, 2020, the forced share is half of the estate and the other half is the libre disposición (free portion) (Art. 1623). In the forced share, the spouse receives a portion equal to each child's, in full ownership (Art. 1624). See the full guide on forced heirship: the legítima.

Step 3: make a will

A will is the document in which you decide what happens to your property after your death. In Puerto Rico the most common are the testamento abierto (will executed before a notary) and the testamento ológrafo (handwritten will), written entirely by hand, dated and signed by you (Art. 1643). Since the 2020 Code, a will executed before a notary does not require witnesses, unless you or the notary ask for them or you cannot read or sign (Art. 1644).

A will lets you:

• Decide who receives the free portion.
• Name an albacea (executor), the person in charge of carrying out your wishes.
• Say how you want specific assets divided, such as the house.
• Spare your family from having to obtain a declaratoria de herederos (declaration of heirs).

The notario (in Puerto Rico a notary is an attorney) reports the will to the Registro de Testamentos (Wills Registry) of ODIN (Office of Notarial Inspection) on the next business day (Ley Notarial, Art. 73). That way your family can find it by requesting a certificate with form OAT-1572. A handwritten will, on the other hand, depends on someone finding it and presenting it to a court or a notary: it expires if it is not presented within 5 years of the death (Art. 1654). Compare the options in types of wills and in how to make a will.

Review it when your life changes: a marriage, a divorce, a new child, the death of an heir or the sale of the house. Divorce revokes what the will left to the former spouse (Art. 1714), but everything else stays the same until you change it.

Step 4: review insurance and account beneficiaries

Some assets are not distributed by will. The Supreme Court has ruled that the proceeds of a life insurance policy are not part of the decedent's estate, because the beneficiary acquires a right of their own (2002 TSPR 123). And the Trust Act excludes from the Civil Code's inheritance rules the assets of qualified retirement plan trusts, which are paid according to the plan documents (Act 219-2012, Art. 71).

That is why it does no good to write in your will that "the insurance is for my daughter" if the policy still names someone else. Review each beneficiary form along with your will. We explain this in detail in life insurance and beneficiaries.

Step 5: sign a durable power of attorney

An ordinary power of attorney (what the Code calls a mandato) ends if the person who grants it becomes incapacitated (Art. 1413). Just when it is needed most, it stops working.

The 2020 Civil Code created the mandato con poder duradero (durable power of attorney) (Art. 1402). Its main rules are:

• It is granted in a public instrument, that is, before a notary.
• It must state expressly that it remains in effect after you become incapacitated, whether or not there is a court declaration of incapacity.
• If it authorizes selling real estate, it must describe those properties and identify which one is your principal residence.
• Unless the power says otherwise, it does not cover real estate you acquire after signing it.
• Even if the power authorizes it, the agent cannot sell or mortgage your principal residence, or its furnishings, without prior court authorization.

The durable power of attorney is designed for incapacity during life; it does not replace a will. When you die, your property is handled under the inheritance rules.

Another tool: the tutela voluntaria diferida (advance designation of a guardian). You can name in a public deed the person you want as your guardian if you become incapacitated in the future. The notary sends a copy to the Registro de Tutelas (Guardianship Registry) within 10 days, and the court will appoint that person unless it is not in your best interest or the situation has changed significantly (Art. 130).

Step 6: put your medical decisions in writing

What many people call a "living will" or "advance directive" is governed in Puerto Rico by Act 160-2001, the Ley de Declaración Previa de Voluntad sobre Tratamiento Médico (Advance Directive on Medical Treatment Act). Under its current text:

• Any person over 21 years of age in full use of their mental faculties can make one.
• It applies if you come to have a terminal health condition (one that, in medical judgment, will cause death in no more than 6 months) or a persistent vegetative state, and you cannot express yourself.
• It must be written, signed and sworn before a notary (or a person authorized to authenticate signatures), or made before a physician and two witnesses who are not your heirs and are not involved in your direct care.
• You can name a mandatario (health care agent) to decide for you. If you name no one, the law treats as your agent the closest adult relative according to the order of inheritance, starting with the spouse.
• It cannot prohibit pain relief or hydration and nutrition, unless death is imminent or your body can no longer absorb nutrition.
• You can revoke it at any time, in writing or verbally.

You yourself must give a copy to your physician and to the health care institution (Art. 5). Also give a copy to the person you named as your agent.

Step 7: put together a folder for your family

A plan only works if your family can find it. Prepare a folder, physical or digital, with:

1. A copy of your will and the name of the notary who executed it.
2. Your up-to-date inventory of property and debts.
3. Copies of insurance policies and beneficiary forms.
4. Your durable power of attorney and your advance medical directive.
5. Property deeds and recent CRIM (Municipal Revenue Collection Center) statements.
6. Contact information for your accountant, your bank and your insurer.
7. A note with instructions about digital accounts and keys.

Tell one or two people you trust where it is. The documents checklist shows you what your family will need to gather afterward.

CaudalRelicto.com is an independent guide. It is not Puerto Rico's Departamento de Hacienda, the courts or any government agency. This page is general information, not legal advice from an attorney who knows your case. Names and figures in examples are hypothetical. Found an error? Tell us.