An heir may administer the estate directly by operation of law, yet holds no document to prove it. Without one, the bank, the land registry and the energy supplier will not deal with them, and where there are several heirs who disagree, it is the court that decides who is entitled (Section 156 of the Act on special court proceedings). An administrator appointed in a notarial deed does not face this obstacle: after the death the notary issues them a certified copy, which is a public instrument.
Because they have not yet acquired the inheritance and have nothing to prove it with. The right of succession arises on death (Section 1479 of the Civil Code), but the acquisition of the inheritance is confirmed only by the court (Section 1670), albeit with retroactive effect as at the date of death (Section 185(1) of the Act on special court proceedings). The Supreme Court puts it bluntly: the right of succession “is merely a title to acquiring the estate, since only the person so designated by a final decision of the (succession) court becomes the heir and acquires the inheritance” (decision file no. 29 Cdo 3782/2020, reported as No. 16/2023). Until then, creditors may claim performance only against whoever administers the estate, and may seek satisfaction only from property belonging to it (Section 1703). The counterparty of a bank, a tenant or an authority is whoever administers the estate, not the bereaved person as a future heir.
The statute sets an order, and each position comes with a different document. Where the deceased appointed an administrator of the estate or an executor of the will, the administrator manages the estate until the acquisition of the inheritance is confirmed, otherwise the executor does; where neither was appointed, the heir manages it, and where there are several heirs and they agree nothing else, all of them manage it jointly (Section 1677(1)).
| Who administers | From when | What proves it |
|---|---|---|
| Administrator appointed by the deceased | Of their own accord, once they learn of the death (Section 1557) | A certified copy of the notarial deed, issued by the notary after the death against a death certificate (Section 91(2) of the Notarial Code); it is a public instrument (Section 6(1)) |
| Executor of the will, where no administrator was appointed | The same | The instrument of appointment; where appointed by public instrument, the rules on administrators apply accordingly (Section 1554(2)) |
| Heir by operation of law | From the death, in fact and without any ruling | Nothing. Only where doubt arises does the court rule who is entitled to administer (Section 156) |
| Court-appointed administrator | The day following service of the decision (Section 158(3)) | The decision, in which the court always defines the scope of the property administered or the purpose of the appointment (Section 158(2)) |
The whole point of this article lies in the gap between the first and the third row. The notary holding the deed issues a certified copy after the death of the deceased “to anyone who proves to them a legal interest and the death of the deceased”, and the death may be proved only by a death certificate or a judgment declaring the person dead (Section 91(2) of the Notarial Code). An appointed administrator therefore holds a public instrument almost immediately. An heir administering by operation of law receives nothing.
The account agreement does not terminate on the death of its holder, and the bank stops only those cash withdrawals and transfers which the holder specified were not to continue after their death (Section 2666); an authorised signatory's mandate does not lapse on the death of the principal unless the mandate provides otherwise (Section 2664). The Czech National Bank puts it more strictly still: a bank must not cancel standing orders and direct debits even once the death has been evidenced to it. Whoever held a right of disposal during the holder's lifetime therefore carries on; whoever did not, waits. And they will wait until they produce a document, because “the statute does not expect a financial institution to take the initiative in ascertaining the account holder” (judgment file no. 33 Cdo 2489/2022). Whoever administers the estate must notify the bank of the death (Section 160), and may deal with it, giving instructions within the scope of simple administration, from the moment they take up the office (Sections 1557, 1678). What they will not obtain on their own initiative, though, is a statement of the balance: they are not among the recipients listed in Section 38(3) of the Banking Act, and it is the court, that is the notary acting as court commissioner, who asks. The notary in turn may not consult the central register of accounts, not being among the bodies listed in Section 6 of the relevant Act, so an account nobody points out to them simply stays unknown.
Each of them wants something different, and none of them asks about Section 1677.
More than an awkward conversation at the counter. The Supreme Court held that an heir “is not entitled to administer the estate merely because they are regarded … as a party to the succession proceedings”, but only where “their right of succession has been clearly established”, where there is no unresolved dispute about that right, and, with several heirs, on the basis of “their unanimous decisions”. Where those conditions are not met, “the conclusion is warranted that administration of the estate belongs to no heir (or to none of the several heirs)” (decision file no. 24 Cdo 3295/2023, reported as No. 51/2025). A quarrel among heirs therefore leaves the estate administered by nobody. The Civil Code adds a sanction that is easily overlooked: where an heir goes beyond simple administration and takes up, without being entitled to do so, full administration of the estate, acting as though the inheritance had already been confirmed, the effects of any reservation of inventory are cancelled from the outset (Section 1681(1)), and an heir without that reservation pays the deceased's debts in full (Section 1704), that is beyond the value of what they inherited.
Wherever a time limit is running that will not wait for the succession proceedings. The harshest is a trade licence: an administrator of the estate may carry the business on, but must notify the trade licensing office within three months of the death, and a court-appointed administrator within one month; once the period passes unused, “the trade authorisation of the deceased entrepreneur lapses as of the day of their death” (Section 13 of the Trade Licensing Act), that is retroactively, however well the business was running in the meantime. The data box of a self-employed person is made inaccessible as at the date of death and the content of messages in it is kept for only 90 days, so access for an authorised person is worth arranging during one's lifetime. And in pending litigation the procedural successor of the deceased is whoever administers the estate; the Supreme Court accordingly criticised courts for “mechanically staying contentious proceedings until the succession proceedings have been finally concluded” and directed them to ask the court commissioner who is carrying out the administration (decision file no. 24 Cdo 1778/2025, reported as No. 40/2026).
Appointing an administrator of the estate takes a single visit to a notary, ideally together with your will. The notarial tariff sets a fixed fee for the deed, CZK 2,000 for drawing up a notarial deed on a will, a codicil, the appointment of an administrator of the estate or a declaration of disinheritance, plus value added tax and a few hundred crowns for entry in the Register of Legal Acts in Contemplation of Death, where instruments appointing an administrator are kept separately from the rest (Section 35b(3) of the Notarial Code). Choose someone who understands the assets and will accept the role, whether a family member or a professional; you may set their duties and remuneration in the instrument itself (Section 1556(1)), and the decision is not irreversible, since the act appointing an administrator may be revoked in the same way a will is revoked. If the deceased made no such arrangement, the same result can be sought afterwards: an heir may ask the court commissioner to appoint them administrator for another serious reason (Section 157(1)(c) of the Act on special court proceedings), typically because third parties are not satisfied with their statutory entitlement under Section 1677. A court-appointed administrator then has the same standing as one appointed by the deceased (Section 157(5)), except that they wait for a decision instead of holding a certified copy. Two things, however, cannot be promised. An administrator will not shorten the proceedings and will not let the heirs deal freely with the property; only a court can allow that, and only to an heir whose right is already clearly established (Section 1680). Nor will the administrator complete a land registry entry alone, since according to the Supreme Court the basis for registration will always be a decision “in conjunction with a final decision on the right of succession” (decision file no. 24 Cdo 2780/2025). The appointment, however, brings a different benefit, one that matters more for living assets: from day one there is a single designated person holding a document, who may deal with the bank, the tenants, the customers and the courts without a debate among the heirs or a court ruling having to come first.
Source: Act No. 89/2012 Coll., the Civil Code (Sections 1405, 1479, 1554, 1556 to 1558, 1670, 1677 to 1681, 1703, 1704, 2221, 2664, 2666); Act No. 292/2013 Coll. on special court proceedings (Sections 156 to 161, 185, 190); Act No. 358/1992 Coll., the Notarial Code (Sections 6, 35b, 91, 94); Act No. 455/1991 Coll. (Section 13), Act No. 256/2013 Coll. (Sections 14, 23, 25), Act No. 283/2021 Coll. (Section 199), Act No. 458/2000 Coll., Act No. 21/1992 Coll. (Section 38), Act No. 300/2016 Coll. (Section 6), Act No. 300/2008 Coll. (Section 11) and Decree No. 196/2001 Coll.; Supreme Court decisions file no. 29 Cdo 3782/2020 (No. 16/2023), file no. 24 Cdo 3295/2023 (No. 51/2025), file no. 24 Cdo 1778/2025 (No. 40/2026), file no. 24 Cdo 2335/2021 (No. 68/2022) and file no. 24 Cdo 2780/2025; Supreme Court judgments file no. 33 Cdo 2489/2022, file no. 24 Cdo 221/2022, file no. 24 Cdo 586/2023 and file no. 24 Cdo 829/2025. The links lead to the full texts (nsoud.cz).
It is practical and evidentiary, and it is fair to say so plainly, because any well informed reader would otherwise raise it. In its judgment of 30 May 2023, file no. 24 Cdo 586/2023, the Supreme Court held that until the decision on the estate becomes final, the heirs “are regarded as owners of the entire property belonging to the estate” and “are jointly and severally entitled and obliged towards other persons” in respect of acts concerning that property. The law therefore does not forbid the bereaved to act. The difficulty is that a third party has no way of verifying that position: the land registry still records the deceased, the bank is bound by banking secrecy and may deal only with an entitled person, and the energy supplier makes do with a death certificate because it could not assess anything else anyway. The document settles to whom the other side may safely render performance, not who owns the assets.
Longer than anyone expects, which is the best argument for appointing an administrator in advance. In its decision of 7 August 2024, file no. 24 Cdo 2090/2024, the estate ran to hundreds of millions of crowns and included a business, and “the deceased himself appointed neither an executor of the will nor an administrator of the estate”. The proceedings began in April 2023, the first-instance court appointed a company as administrator in August 2023, the appellate court changed that in February 2024 in favour of the surviving spouse, and the Supreme Court reversed it again in August 2024, holding among other things that the continuing dispute over the circle of heirs disqualified the surviving spouse in law from administering the estate on her own. Sixteen months and three levels of court thus went on the single question of who may administer the property, without anything being decided about who inherits what. No general statistics can be offered: the Ministry of Justice does not measure the length of succession proceedings, because it derives length from statistical sheets and no sheet exists for that docket. Figures on the caseload do exist, and of the 53,054 succession cases not finally concluded at the end of 2025, almost 1,900 had been running for more than three years.
A fundamental one, which the Supreme Court had to clarify in its judgment of 22 June 2022, file no. 24 Cdo 221/2022. Administration belongs to the heirs by operation of law, so they carry it out, in principle, without any court ruling, particularly in the period immediately after the death, when there is no time for a court to entrust them with it. The court described the opposite approach as a defect: interpreting Section 1677 of the Civil Code without regard to the procedural provisions on the administration of an estate, and equating administration carried out by an heir with the office of a court-appointed administrator, is an incorrect legal assessment. In practical terms an heir who pays for repairs or collects the rent after the death is not acting as an administrator of the estate in the functional sense, and the duties the statute attaches to that office cannot simply be applied to them. Nor, however, does that give them any document to show.
No, and it would be wrong to claim so. The statute provides that unless the law provides otherwise, a court-appointed administrator of the estate has the same legal position as one appointed by the deceased (Section 157(5) of the Act on special court proceedings), and the Supreme Court confirms this repeatedly. The difference lies in two other things. The first is time: an appointed administrator takes up the role once they learn of the death (Section 1557), whereas a court appointment is preceded by the whole process of deciding whom to appoint, and the office arises only on the day after the decision is served. The second is the form of proof: for an appointed administrator it is a certified copy of the notarial deed issued against a death certificate, for a court-appointed one a decision that has to be waited for. The statute knows no special certificate of administratorship; a notary may issue a confirmation of facts known from their files (Section 94 of the Notarial Code), but that is an optional instrument of notarial activity conditional on the parties' consent, not proof of office.
Under Section 1678(1) whoever manages the estate exercises simple administration, which under Section 1405 means doing everything necessary to preserve the property. In its decision of 31 August 2021, file no. 24 Cdo 2335/2021 (reported as No. 68/2022), the Supreme Court warned against reading this too narrowly: simple administration so defined certainly cannot be read as a complete freezing of the property in the state it was in when the administrator took office, and depending on the nature of the assets it will also mean continuing to deal with things and rights as the deceased did, including carrying on their business. The administrator cannot do without the ability to enforce payments by procedural means, including bringing actions and enforcement petitions. The case itself concerned a lawyer whom the testatrix had appointed administrator by notarial deed and who, once notified of her death, took up the office and continued her litigation in her place. An act beyond simple administration, typically a sale of real property, by contrast requires the consent of the heirs, and failing their agreement or where an heir is a person under special protection, the consent of the court (Section 1679(2), procedurally Section 161).
It does not, and that is the other side of the same coin. In its judgment of 27 August 2025, file no. 24 Cdo 829/2025, a debtor paid CZK 6.5 million into court after the creditor's death, saying it did not know whom to pay. The Supreme Court did not accept this: because no administrator of the estate or executor had been appointed and the court had ordered no other measure, the estate was administered by the claimant alone, so the debtor was not in a state of objective uncertainty as to who its creditor was and could have paid her as the only person then administering the estate. Payment into court under Section 1953 therefore saves only a debtor who is uncertain through no fault of their own. An uncomfortable symmetry follows: the law does not reward caution on the part of a bank or a supplier, yet that is no help to the bereaved, because their counterparty practises it anyway.
Section 160 of the Act on special court proceedings requires whoever manages the estate to sell, with the court's consent, property that cannot be preserved without a risk of damage or disproportionate cost, the consent not being required where the property faces rapid deterioration or is likely to lose value quickly; to notify of the death the bank, branch of a foreign bank or credit union where the deceased held an account; and to notify the known creditors and debtors of the deceased. After the proceedings end they notify the known creditors and debtors who acquired the claim or the debt, and the bank who became the owner of the account (Section 190(2)). Whoever manages the estate also pays out of it the maintenance instalments due to those entitled to them and delivers to the legatees a notice of the legacies falling to them (Section 1678(2) of the Civil Code). The administration ends when the decision on the inheritance becomes final (Section 188).
Provisions cited from the current wording of Act No. 89/2012 Coll., Act No. 292/2013 Coll., Act No. 358/1992 Coll., Act No. 455/1991 Coll., Act No. 256/2013 Coll., Act No. 283/2021 Coll., Act No. 458/2000 Coll., Act No. 21/1992 Coll., Act No. 300/2016 Coll., Act No. 300/2008 Coll. and Decree No. 196/2001 Coll., verified on 8 September 2026 against the official collection. Case law verified from the full texts: Supreme Court decisions 29 Cdo 3782/2020 of 28 April 2022 (No. 16/2023), 24 Cdo 3295/2023 of 20 June 2024 (No. 51/2025), 24 Cdo 1778/2025 of 20 September 2025 (No. 40/2026), 24 Cdo 2335/2021 of 31 August 2021 (No. 68/2022), 24 Cdo 2090/2024 of 7 August 2024 and 24 Cdo 2780/2025 of 25 February 2026; Supreme Court judgments 33 Cdo 2489/2022 of 23 February 2023, 24 Cdo 221/2022 of 22 June 2022, 24 Cdo 586/2023 of 30 May 2023 and 24 Cdo 829/2025 of 27 August 2025. Czech National Bank position on Section 2666 (information under Act No. 106/1999 Coll., 17 March 2014). Statistics: CSLAV report S_AS_39 (succession docket at district courts, 2025).