To Transfer or Not to Transfer

Each year in Russia, substantial amounts of housing change hands between generations, yet it remains impossible to assess the value of this flow. There are no separate official statistics on the volume of inherited property, and estimates running into several trillion rubles that appear in legal publications lack transparent methodology. Consequently, the scale must be measured through individual indicators: the number of wills, transfers of housing rights, notary activity, and demographics.

In 2025, rights to apartments, rooms, and residential houses through gifts, wills, and inheritance were received by 1.27 million people. For comparison, 656,600 people received housing through gift agreements. In other words, property transfers between generations have long since extended beyond inheritance procedures proper. What's essentially taking shape is a market for intergenerational property redistribution, where owners have three main strategies: transfer assets during their lifetime, predetermine their fate through a will, or change nothing and leave property for inheritance by law.

Wills plateau after growth

One of the most straightforward indicators of this market remains the number of wills. In 2025, Russian notaries certified approximately 600,000 such documents. This roughly matches the previous year's level: in 2024, 607,500 wills were executed, 8% more than in 2023. Thus, rapid growth has given way to stabilization at around 0.6 million documents per year.

The Federal Notary Chamber (FNB) believes that the very fact this figure has held steady indicates stable demand for predetermined property transfers.

"Many Russians are thinking about disposing of their property for the most critical scenario—in the event of death. The trend toward deliberate inheritance planning persists."

Wills are most often executed in major regions. Moscow accounted for 11% of all documents in 2025, Moscow Region for 7%, St. Petersburg for 5%, Krasnodar Territory for 4%, and Rostov Region for 3%. The top 10 also included Sverdlovsk Region, Tatarstan, Samara, Chelyabinsk, and Nizhny Novgorod Regions.

The will itself does not mean that the heir will receive a specific asset in the form the owner envisions. There are mandatory shares for certain categories of heirs, spousal shares, and other restrictions. Moreover, the deceased's liabilities may be transferred along with the assets.

Attorney, Senior Partner at Liniya Prava Law Firm Valeria Kachura notes:

"People sincerely believe that a will represents absolute freedom: I'll write whoever I want. But minor children, disabled children, a disabled spouse, and disabled dependent parents will receive their share of the inheritance regardless of what the will says."

According to her, the second source of conflicts is property acquired during marriage. If it is jointly owned by spouses, only the deceased's share enters the estate.

"The second issue is the spousal share, because you can only bequeath your individually owned property. If property was acquired during marriage, half belongs by default to the surviving spouse, unless there's a prenuptial agreement, and only the other half enters the estate."

There's also a third problem—debts. An heir accepts not only assets but also obligations up to the value of the inherited property. Therefore, an apartment, money, or business doesn't always mean a net increase in the family's wealth.

Gifting becomes an alternative

On the other end of the spectrum is the transfer of property during one's lifetime. Since January 13, 2025, any gift of real estate between individuals requires notarization, making such transfers more formalized.

The economic logic of gifting differs from that of a will. The owner removes the asset from the future estate in advance and transfers it to a specific person. But in doing so, he loses the right to manage it as owner.

"I've always said that this is a choice between control and certainty. Lifetime transfer, most often through gifting, makes sense when the owner wants to guarantee provision for a specific person and eliminate future disputes. You gift to a specific person—and the asset is removed from the estate, so there's nothing left for heirs to divide," says Valeria Kachura.

At the same time, she notes, the decision to gift requires weighing the cost of such certainty.

"But gifting has a price—it's irreversible and means losing control. Once you've gifted an apartment, you legally cease to be its owner, because revoking a gift is only possible in narrow circumstances explicitly specified by law."

Head of Private Client Practice at EKM Legal Anna Kazimir draws attention to another aspect of the issue: first, you need to establish who legally owns the property and who actually controls it. In complex family and corporate situations, nominal registration of assets can create problems both with gifting and with inheritance.

The difference between the two instruments becomes especially apparent at the moment of the owner's death. If an apartment has already been gifted, it doesn't form part of the estate. If a will has been drafted, the owner retains the ability to change it until death, sell the property, or use it for their own needs.

That's precisely why the choice between gifting and a will can't be reduced to a question of which method is simpler. In one case, it's more important to guarantee transfer to a specific person; in another, to maintain control over the asset until the end of life.

The main risk—dividing property

The most complex situations arise where an inheritance can't simply be divided into several equal parts. Cash is distributed relatively easily, while an apartment, land plot, or business can become the cause of years-long conflict.

"The most common conflict among heirs is dividing what physically can't be divided. For example, one apartment for three heirs who live in different places," says Valeria Kachura.

If co-owners can't reach an agreement, a property can remain in limbo for years.

Anna Kazimir also notes that the problem often stems from the absence of a predetermined asset management structure. When multiple heirs receive shares in an apartment or business, each must account for the interests of the others. For businesses, this is particularly dangerous: while heirs are "waging wars," the company can lose manageability.

"If we can transfer a healthy business, it will generate profit. Most companies cannot withstand the six-month inheritance acceptance period and corporate-inheritance litigation lasting several years. So in the end, instead of a highly profitable business, heirs may receive a loss-making company, because the business may simply not survive until the disputes between heirs are resolved."

According to Valeria Kachura's assessment, assets have different economic effects for a family. Cash is easiest to divide, real estate provides greater value but more often becomes a source of conflict, while land depends on its purpose and liquidity. The most complex asset remains a business, since its value directly depends on the ability to continue operating after the owner's death.

This is precisely why estate planning is gradually extending beyond a single will. For an entrepreneur, the ownership structure, corporate agreement, prenuptial agreement, inheritance fund, or personal fund may all matter. At the same time, it's important to decide in advance who is capable of managing the business, rather than simply distributing it among all heirs.

Notary services are becoming part of the infrastructure

Inheritance is only one part of notaries' work. In 2025, they performed 43.3 million notarial acts. The number of notarized real estate transactions exceeded 1 million contracts, increasing by 24% over the year. Residential property transactions alone grew by 23%, non-residential properties by 27%, and land plots by 25%.

While these statistics aren't a direct indicator of inheritance, they show how extensive the notarial infrastructure around real estate has become. An inherited property may subsequently be divided among relatives, sold, gifted, or combined with other assets. The more property transactions pass through formalized procedures, the more important the quality of a property's ownership history becomes.

Digitalization is gradually reducing some of the costs. In January–June 2026, notaries digitized nearly 702,000 paper documents, up 10% from the previous year.

The notary system already has digital tools for handling inheritance matters. The Inheritance Cases Registry of the Federal Notary Chamber has been operating since 2018 and allows anyone to check free of charge whether an inheritance case has been opened and which notary is handling it. An application to accept an inheritance can be submitted to a notary in another region electronically if the heir cannot appear in person.

Timing is critical here: the basic period for accepting an inheritance is six months from the date of the testator's death. For someone living in another city or country, the ability to submit documents remotely can have real practical significance.

In 2026, the "Digital Inheritance" pilot project was also launched. In April, the first person in Russia received funds due to them without visiting a bank: a machine-readable certificate of inheritance rights was delivered to their personal account on Gosuslugi, after which the document could be uploaded to the bank's app. The entire process from request to funds transfer took twenty minutes. For now, the service is available to Sber clients, with plans to connect other banks and extend the technology to securities and real estate.

That said, wills cannot yet be fully moved online. A personal meeting with a notary is necessary to verify identity, legal capacity, and voluntary intent. An electronic copy of the will is stored in encrypted form in the Unified Information System of Notaries.

Demographics shape the future flow

Another factor that will determine the inheritance market is the age structure of the population. However, there's no direct correlation between the number of deaths and the volume of inherited property: the value of the inheritance pool is determined not only by the number of deaths but also by what assets the departing generation owned.

In January 2025, Rosstat recorded deaths 6.5% lower than the previous year. Meanwhile, for January through June 2025, according to data cited from the Ministry of Health, the number of deaths totaled 915,900, up 0.9% year-over-year. Regular federal publication of detailed demographic statistics has since become less transparent, so these figures cannot be mechanically combined or compared as a unified series.

Demographics matter primarily because the structure of families themselves is changing. Fewer children, remarriages, children from different relationships, migration between regions—all of this affects who will inherit property and how easily it can be divided.

For the real estate market, this means the emergence of a large number of properties that, after changing hands, take on a new economic fate. Some apartments remain in the family, others are sold, still others are split into shares among multiple owners. Inheritance can therefore generate additional supply in the secondary market, though its volume cannot yet be assessed using publicly available statistics.

The state inherits too

Not all assets remain within the family. Statistics for 2025 aren't available yet, but back in 2024 notaries issued 8,500 certificates for escheat property—6% more than the year before. This refers to property for which there are no heirs or where the inheritance was not claimed, and which consequently passes to public ownership.

For the state, this isn't simply a matter of acquiring an apartment, land, or other asset. Such property must be registered, maintained, and managed. Escheat inheritance thus becomes a distinct segment of property redistribution with direct budgetary consequences.

More recent nationwide figures for 2025 are not yet available in public sources. As with the overall value of inherited property, this limits the ability to assess the segment as a whole.

A market without a total price tag

For now, estate planning remains a topic many families put off until the last moment. Valeria Kachura attributes this not only to legal complexity but also to attitudes toward the subject itself.

"Plus there's the illusion that the children will sort it out themselves: I raised them well. And the reluctance to spend money on a lawyer in advance: in the end, they save a few tens of thousands on proper structuring, while the heirs lose millions. And then—relationships are lost in these years-long disputes."

Anna Kazimir also believes that one reason for conflicts is families' unwillingness to discuss the future of property in advance. At the same time, estate planning is becoming a way not only to designate who receives assets but also to reduce costs for the heirs themselves.

Ultimately, Russia's "inheritance market" is better understood as a system of intergenerational property transfer. Its scale is already evident in housing turnover and notarial activity, but its actual value remains unknown. The key decision for property owners isn't just whom to leave their assets to, but how to transfer them in a way that preserves their value after the change of ownership.