printable version | August 2021
On August 4, 2021, the Decree adding and amending various articles of the Civil Code for the Federal District (the “Civil Code”) and the Notarial Law for Mexico City (the “Notary Law”), some of them regarding inheritance matters (the “Decree”), was published in the Official Gazette of Mexico City.
The Decree introduced certain modifications to the subject of succession to bring the regulation of the same into the digital reality in which we currently live. Among these, the following stand out:
- The legacy may also consist of the ownership of digital assets or rights stored on a computer, server or platform, and these may consist of, among others, email accounts, internet addresses, photographs, images, bank accounts, keys, passwords, etc.
- It establishes a storage system for said digital rights, which may be managed by the same notary or through a permanent storage system.[1].
- It includes mechanisms for the destruction of these electronic rights, in the event that this was the will of the testator or if nothing had been done in line with the human right to be forgotten.
- Once it comes into force, the open public will may be granted electronically, also regulated through the reform of the Notarial Law, and may be signed using the Advanced Electronic Signature.
- Likewise, once it comes into force, open public wills may be granted by electronic means that allow simultaneous and real-time communication for emergency or extraordinary cases. A list of requirements that must be met for such granting to be valid is also included.
Regarding the reforms to the Notarial Law, and for the application of the reforms to the Civil Code, the figure of Digital Notarial Action is established, that is, one carried out by electronic means within the environment of a digital protocol.
The reforms came into force on August 5, 2021, except for what is related to the Digital Notarial Performance and related concepts such as Digital Protocol, Electronic Instrument, Appendix of the Electronic Instrument, Book of Extracts, Electronic Signature for the Digital Notarial Performance and any other analogous or related to said performance, which will come into force two years after the date of their publication in the Official Gazette of Mexico City.
[1] Digital notarial performance referred to in the Notarial Law for Mexico City.
If you require additional information, please contact the partner responsible for your matters or one of the lawyers mentioned below:
