According to art. 925 and art. 924 Polish Civil Code (PCC) the heir acquires inheritance in the moment of death of the deceased, but is entitled to reject it. In many cases he may take inherited estate under his administration or obtain certificate of inheritance, and still be entitled to reject. Therefore he may dispose of inherited property (partially or completely), acquire new one in exchange, pay some liabilities of the inheritance or oblige himself in relation to inherited rights, and then reject the inheritance. Art. 1021 PCC provides that rules of voluntary services (art. 752-757 PCC) apply correspondingly to relations between the rejecting heir, and the heir who eventually acquires it. According to them the definitive heir is generally obliged to refund justifiable expenses incurred by the rejecting heir and to release him from obligations. The second one is obliged to compensate the first for changes in the administered estate which were not necessary or beneficiary. If the rejecting heir did not obtain the certificate of inheritance the parties contracting with him are protected only by general rules of acquiring rights from non-owner. He retains ownership of the property acquired in exchange for inherited property, and he is still personally liable for obligations incurred by him with regard to inherited estate. Liabilities of the inheritance were successfully discharged by him only if the creditor accepted his performance. He was not entitled to discharge them using substituted modes of performance such as performance in lieu of promised performance or set-off. The situation changes substantially if the rejecting heir obtained the certificate of inheritance. Then the third person acting in a good faith may successfully acquire from him all kinds of inherited rights, because acting on the presumption established by the certificate of inheritance is protected, unless it can be proved, that the third person knew that the certificate was incorrect or could have known it, if he had acted with due diligence. This protection is however restricted to dispositions of inherited rights made by the person who obtained the certificate (art. 1028 PPC). Difficult problems may occur in case of unilateral declarations made by rejecting heir. On the other hand ratification by the definitive heir (art. 756 PPC) is only of limited importance.
The article is an attempt of analysis of the presentation of voluntary services and charity actions phenomena in Catholic weekly magazines from Lublin. The author shows fields of volunteers' activities and charity actions conducting by church and secular organizations which weekly magazines are interested in, through examples of chosen articles published by these magazines. A favorable and kind image emerges from this analysis, serving undoubtedly building up the positive atmosphere around aid action and people becoming involved in them. In the context of 2011year that has been proclaimed the European Year of Voluntary Services by the decision of the Council of the European Union, one should accept this article as the precious study and the incentive to discussion on the possibility of becoming involved of local Catholic press in actions for the promotion of voluntary services and charity actions.
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