Trust- und Erbstreitigkeiten

When families and trustees disagree

Disputes over trusts and estates often involve assets in Switzerland, trustees in offshore centres and heirs on several continents. Swiss courts and arbitral tribunals decide many of them, and Swiss law gives heirs and beneficiaries effective means to obtain information and to secure assets before they are moved elsewhere.

For heirs and beneficiaries abroad the first practical difficulty is often simply finding out what exists. Assets may be held by a Swiss bank in the name of a trust, a foundation or an underlying company, while the documents that govern them are kept by a trustee elsewhere. Swiss law and court practice provide ways to obtain information that are worth knowing before any claim is formulated.

Courts, arbitration and securing assets

Heirs who consider a will invalid or their compulsory share infringed can bring an action for invalidity or for reduction under the Civil Code. Since the reform of 2023 the compulsory share of descendants has been reduced and parents no longer have one, which gives testators more freedom and changes the calculation in many estates with an international dimension.

Where assets are at risk of disappearing, Swiss law allows them to be frozen by an attachment under the Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Act or by interim measures under the Civil Procedure Code. Judgments from states party to the Lugano Convention are recognised under simplified rules, and arbitral awards from most countries under the New York Convention, which matters greatly in disputes spanning several continents.

In this section

The articles explain claims against trustees, the information rights of heirs towards Swiss banks, challenges to wills, forced heirship claims, the securing of assets and the recognition of foreign judgments.