Considered Taboo, Yet Essential: Revisiting Inheritance Law
JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Discussions about inheritance are still often avoided by many Indonesian families. Talking about the assets of a deceased person is frequently considered inappropriate, unethical, and even a sign of impudence.
Often, inheritance discussions are postponed until 40 days, one year, or a specific time believed to be the “boundary of propriety”.
However, according to legal practitioner Yosi Mulyadi, such notions have no legal basis whatsoever. From a legal perspective, inheritance relations arise immediately upon a person’s death.
“Legally, inheritance only exists because of death. As long as a person is alive, what exists is not inheritance, but rather gifts or wills,” said Yosi in a conversation with Kompas.com some time ago.
This is similarly affirmed in Article 171 letter b of the Compilation of Islamic Law (KHI), which defines inheritance as the transfer of ownership rights to assets after the death of the testator.
In other words, from the moment of death, inheritance law takes effect regardless of whether the family is ready to discuss it or not.
Yosi emphasises that the law does not recognise any obligation to wait 40 days, one year, or a specific period to handle inheritance. Such provisions are purely from social and cultural customs, not legal norms.
In Islamic law, there is instead a sequence of obligations that must be promptly settled for the deceased’s assets, as regulated in Article 175 Paragraph (1) KHI, namely:
“Delay is not prohibited, but it often becomes the starting point for disputes, especially if there are more heirs,” he said.
Prolonged delays often leave the status of assets unclear, transferred, or unilaterally controlled by one heir.
A Kompas.com survey of 979 readers from late 2025 to early 2026 shows that inheritance issues are not a marginal concern.
As many as 73 percent of respondents have been involved in inheritance distribution in their core family. The majority describe inheritance disputes as a serious problem in Indonesia.
As many as 71 percent of respondents consider inheritance disputes, both from a legal and family conflict perspective, to be a major issue.
This figure comes not only from those who have experienced it, but also from those who have not. Even the 18–24 age group is the most sensitive to this issue.
According to Yosi, inheritance law is fundamentally not as complex as many people imagine. It is built on three main components:
“In inheritance, there are only three. If these three are clear, everything is just a matter of calculation.”
In addition to these three main components, inheritance law also includes several supporting aspects, such as: Debts of the testator (Article 1100 BW), Wills (Article 875 BW), Rejection of inheritance (Article 1045 BW), and Barriers to inheritance (Article 838 BW).
Problems often arise when one of these components is not established from the beginning, particularly who the heirs are and what constitutes the inheritance assets.
Indonesia recognises more than one inheritance law system, particularly civil inheritance law and Islamic inheritance law. According to Yosi, these two systems have different principles and cannot be mixed.