Short answer. One-half. Article 889 gives legitimate parents and ascendants a legitime of half the estate where no children or descendants survive. The other half is yours to dispose of, subject to the shares of a surviving spouse and of any illegitimate children, which are taken from that free half.
What the law says
The legitime of legitimate parents or ascendants consists of one-half of the hereditary estates of their children and descendants.
Civil Code, Article 889 — Legitime of Legitimate Parents. Read the full provision →
What the law says
If the testator leaves no legitimate descendants, but leaves legitimate ascendants, the surviving spouse shall have a right to one-fourth of the hereditary estate. This fourth shall be taken from the free portion of the estate.
Civil Code, Article 893 — Spouse With Legitimate Ascendants. Read the full provision →
Parents inherit only when no descendants do
Ascendants are compulsory heirs in the second rank. They take a legitime only where the deceased leaves no legitimate children or descendants, and in that case the legitime of legitimate parents or ascendants consists of one-half of the hereditary estates of their children and descendants. The fraction is the same one children would have had. What changes is who holds it and how it is split: between father and mother equally, with the whole passing to the survivor if one of them has died before you.
What the other half really amounts to
Article 889 lets you freely dispose of the other half, but expressly subject to the rights of illegitimate children and of the surviving spouse. If you are married and leave ascendants but no descendants, Article 893 gives your spouse one-fourth of the estate, and says plainly that this fourth shall be taken from the free portion of the estate. So a married testator survived by both parents and a spouse has a quarter of the estate genuinely at large, before any illegitimate child's share is reckoned.
Grandparents can stand in your parents' place
The reserved half belongs to the ascending line generally, not to parents alone. Where neither father nor mother survives but grandparents do, the same half is theirs, divided equally between the paternal and maternal lines when the survivors are of equal degree. Where the survivors are of unequal degree, it goes entirely to those nearest in degree of either line. Great-grandparents therefore take nothing while a grandparent lives, and a will drafted on the assumption that ascendants simply drop out is wrong.
Drafting around it
Work out the shares as figures before you write in names. Establish who in the ascending line is actually alive at the time you draft, and revisit the will when a parent dies, since the survivor absorbs the whole reserved portion. If your aim is to benefit a partner, a sibling or a charity, they are competing for the free portion only, and the spouse's fourth is carved out of that same portion first. A parent left short can demand the legitime be fully satisfied, and excessive dispositions are reduced.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 889 — Legitime of Legitimate Parents
- Civil Code, Article 890 — Legitime Of Legitimate Parents
- Civil Code, Article 893 — Spouse With Legitimate Ascendants