Anyone who thinks they can "settle the estate later" should read the following lines. An estate waits for nobody, and the older it gets, the more creative the problems become.
The first problem is formal. As an heir you have six weeks to decide whether to accept or reject the inheritance (Section 1944 of the Civil Code). Six weeks, counted from the moment you know you have inherited and what your share of the estate looks like. That is very short, in particular when the deceased was your elderly aunt whom you did not see often, who perhaps lived in a modest but in a doubtful state of maintenance, and whose debts were not, let us put it kindly, transparent. Miss the deadline and the inheritance is deemed accepted. With debts and all.
The second problem is informal. Grief does not keep a calendar. Many heirs spend the first few weeks after a death dealing with the funeral, the flat, the family; they open the post with hesitation and do not notice that, somewhere in it, is a bank statement that says "minus fifty thousand". Or a letter from the telephone company, or the tax office, or a debt collector. Six weeks can pass in a blur when grief is real. That is precisely when the deadline is running fastest.
This is why I advise families, quietly and practically, to find a lawyer in the first week after the death, and not in the fifth. A short overview of the estate — bank accounts, contracts, properties, known debts — is cheap. The decision between acceptance, rejection, inheritance with the "benefit of inventory" and Nachlassinsolvenz (insolvency of the estate) is one of the most consequential decisions of your life. It is always better taken with the head than with the heart.
The third problem is specific to relationships. Testators — for many reasons — love to leave their "unfortunate bequests": the brother-in-law who has not spoken to his sister in twenty years is suddenly to receive the piano; the son who only phones on birthdays is to inherit the vintage car. Every such bequest rests on the testator's hand but is carried out by the heirs, who often meet each other for the first time in the lawyer's office. The air in that room can be colder than any mortuary.
The best inheritance planning therefore does not just include a will; it includes the will being known before the death occurs. Families who sit around a table once every few years with the elderly member, a notary if need be, and a small cup of coffee — those families stand, in the hour of grief, on a different ground. Families who first open the will in the solicitor's office often discover that the deceased had not only decided who gets what; she had, entirely unintentionally, designed the first family quarrel after her passing.
So — the unfortunate bequest is less a legal than a human problem. But the law makes it more manageable. Take the first step to a lawyer. Take it early. Take it, ideally, before you even have to.