BONA VACAN´TIA
BONA VACAN´TIA were the property which a person left
at his death without having disposed of it by will and without leaving any
heres ab intestato. Such property was open
to occupancy ; and so long as the rules of civil law existed by themselves,
such occupancy may not have been uncommon, but the
bonorum possessio of the praetor, by opening the succession
to classes of persons excluded at civil law, was a means of preventing such
title by occupancy from arising. It does not appear that the state
originally claimed the property of a person who died without
heredes. The claim of the state to such property
seems to have been first established by the Lex Julia caducaria (Gaius,
2.150; Ulp. 28.7). [
BONA
CADUCA] The state--that is, in the earlier periods the
aerarium, and afterwards the
fiscus--did not take such property as
heres, although succeeding
per
universitatem. Being, however,
loco
heredis, it was bound to pay
fideicommissa charged on the estate by the deceased. The
fiscus could not make good its claim as against a
person who had possessed
bona vacantia for four
years (
praescriptio quadriennii). Certain
persons in a privileged position were allowed to claim
bona vacantia before the
fiscus.
Thus, in the case of a soldier dying without
heredes, the legion to which he belonged had priority. Various
corporate bodies had a like preference in respect to
bona
caduca of a member of the corporation. (Cod. 10.10; Vangerow,
Pandekten, 2.564.)
[
G.L] [
E.A.W]
