Heirs and deceased’s bank accounts in Italy
During the course of succession, heirs assume not only the assets of the deceased, but also liabilities. These liabilities may include relationships with banking or credit institutions, making the heir responsible for all rights and duties due these institutions.
The heir nevertheless has a right to access information pertaining to the deceased’s banking or credit history. Article 119 of the Italian T.U.B. (Consolidated Banking Act– Legislative Decree No. 385 of 1 September 1993) states that “the client, he who succeeds (the testator) in any way and who takes over the administration of his assets has the right to obtain, at his own expense, within a reasonable deadline, and in any case no later than ninety days, a copy of the documentation relating to individual transactions carried out over the last ten years. Only the costs of producing such documentation may be charged to the client.” The Italian Court of Cassation has repeatedly ruled in favor of heirs seeking account information and against banks rejecting those requests (Cassation Section I No. 12093 of 27/9/2001; Court of Cassation Section I No. 11004 of 12/5/2006), underlining that the legislation must be interpreted on the basis of the principle of good faith in the execution of the contract and therefore the client has the right to obtain all the documentation of interest, respecting only the ten-year time limit.
In addition, access to personal information must be free and guaranteed in an intelligible form. All documents must therefore be delivered to the applicant without provision of any consideration or reimbursement of expenses. To this end, the Italian guarantor of personal data protection in Italy weighed in with decision No. 372 of 11/10/2011, in which he stressed that an heir (in this case the son of the deceased) may exercise the right of access to personal data of the deceased from banking institutions, stating: “the right to access personal data […] must be guaranteed free of charge and cannot be conditioned.”