A Contemplation on the Disposition by Heirless People of the excess of One-third of their Property according to Shiite Jurisprudence and Iranian Law

On the basis of Imamieh jurisprudence and the law of Iran, the testator has the right to dispose of a maximum of one third of his property. The criterion for calculating such one third is the property left over at the time of death. If he pledges an excess of one-third, it will be legally permissible subject to the heir’s permission. Therefore, in presence of their permission, the will is valid and, in the absence of such a permission, the disposition of the excess will be null and void. However, the question rises what if a person has no legal heirs; can he bequeath more than one third of his property? In the Iran's applicable law, the lawmakers have not explicitly stated a decree, which has led to a brief and ambiguous rule in this regard. Since the solution to the ambiguity of the legal material, subject to the Article 167 of the Constitution and Article 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, should be derived from the credible Islamic authorities or reliable fatawa, therefore, this research seeks to study the credible sources of jurisprudence and the views of the jurists, while providing a definitive ruling on the problem and eliminating the ambiguous rules of the law to conclude that according to the jurisprudential foundations, if a person of no heirs has disposed of his property by a will, such disposition shall not be limited to one-third, and that such disposition may cover all of his estate. However, it was concluded that such disposition shall not preclude the fact that Imam (a.s.) is considered as the heir, because such succession of Imam to the propery of the diseased will hold if there are no heir and no will.