Testaments and bequests as tools for immortalising people and property.

Outline

The subject of this project is the intended continuity achieved through testamentary dispositions and bequests, which can be observed both in terms of the testator’s reputation and in terms of property rights as such. It investigates, on the one hand, how testators or benefactors ‘live on’ in the business made possible by their property rights and how this process initiates structural change through property.

On the other hand, it attempts to answer the question of to what extent testamentary freedom and freedom of bequest are institutionally linked to property rights in life and how those rights undergo a structural change in turn.

Project Staff