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Fatwa CenterA father gifted one of his sons a property as his share in the inheritance
Question
whether an heir who has been gifted some property by a deceased person can inherit any further property from the deceased person.The deceased person give gift during his life as share from his property and he said this many times in his life that this heir has got his share and other heirs will get remaining but after his death property was transfered to this heir also. Now will the gifted property to be included during distribution or not as it was gifted as share from inherited property.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
An heir has a right in the inheritance of the deceased by clear authentic religious texts. For instance, Allaah Says (what means): {For men is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, and for women is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, be it little or much — an obligatory share.}[Quran 4:7]. No one can drop this right, be it the inherited person or else. Similarly, if an heir renounced his right during the life of the deceased person, then he is not obliged to abide by this renouncement, as it is renouncing a right before it is due.
Therefore, what you mentioned about the deceased gifting some of his property to one of his heirs before he died as his share in the inheritance, and that he stated many times that this heir has taken his share in the inheritance, and that the remainder of the inheritance is a right of the other heirs, then the answer is as follows:
This statement could be understood in two ways:
1- It could be that the deceased said this in a joking manner [he did not really mean it], and that he gifted him this part of property and favored him above the other heirs. This matter is permissible if the gifted person is not the son of the deceased, or if the father had no other sons other than him. If this is the case, the gifted person may reserve the property for himself if he possessed it while the deceased was still alive, in which case he has the right to take his share of the inheritance like other heirs. However, if the gifted person is one of the sons of the deceased while the deceased had other sons, then according to the preponderant opinion of the scholars 
it is not permissible to favor one child over others when gifting them except for a sound reason; for more benefit on this issue please refer to Fataawa 83266 and 87422. In this case, that property [which was gifted to the heir] is included in the overall inheritance and it should be divided on all heirs.
2- If the deceased was serious in what he said and that he wanted to prevent that heir from the inheritance in return for the property he gifted him, then this is not correct, as it is not a gift in religious terms since a gift, as defined by the scholars is to donate something without any compensation [without expecting anything in return].
This cannot be a gift for compensation as well, because a gift for compensation takes the ruling of a sale, so the terms of sale should be fulfilled. It is known that one part of the contract being unknown (the expected return for the gifted property) is something which invalidates the validity of sale.
Therefore, this heir took this property with an invalid contract and he must give it back to the heirs or give back its price, or that this property will be deducted from his share in the inheritance. However, he is still entitled for his right in the inheritance as we previously discussed.
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