Belarusian Fights for Deceased Relative's Apartment in St. Petersburg, Despite Being Sixth in Line of Heirs
The court was determining who died first, she or her husband, even though the bodies were already decomposed.
The Moscow District Court of St. Petersburg concluded a protracted court case, the main prize of which — a 45-square-meter apartment on Leninsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, worth approximately $65-70 thousand — ultimately went to two distant relatives of the deceased, one of whom is a citizen of Belarus from the Krychaw district of the Mogilev region.
In June 2022, the bodies of a woman and her husband were found in their St. Petersburg apartment — both died at approximately the same time, but due to severe decomposition, a forensic medical examination could not determine who passed away first.
But this turned out to be the main question of the case: if the husband had outlived his wife even by a day, he would have become her heir, and the apartment after his death would have gone to his daughter from another marriage — it was she who initially tried to claim the dwelling for herself.
Nevertheless, the court decided that the husband and wife died simultaneously — and such people, according to the law, have no right to inheritance. Thus, the husband's daughter was left with no claims to the apartment at all.
Meanwhile, the inheritance was claimed by a Belarusian from the Krychaw district and his cousin, a citizen of Russia — both called themselves the deceased's first cousins once removed (sons of her cousin). It was impossible to officially prove kinship: the pre-war civil registry archive in the Krychaw district was not preserved, and the court had to establish kinship indirectly — through identical names and surnames of ancestors in various documents and coinciding places of birth. According to the Civil Code of Russia, first cousins once removed are considered heirs only of the sixth degree of priority — the most distant category of kinship that generally has the right to inheritance without a will. And they receive it only if there are simply no closer heirs.
As a result, the court recognized both applicants as legal heirs and divided the apartment equally — 1/2 share to each, including the Belarusian from the Krychaw region.
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