In life, many people mistakenly believe that the funeral expenses, compensation for bereavement, and hardship assistance funds distributed after the death of an elderly person are inheritance and can be distributed according to the will. However, from a legal perspective, these three types of funds do not belong to the inheritance, have a special nature, and the distribution rules are completely different from inheritance succession.

 

  Article   1122 of the   Civil Code explicitly stipulates: The inheritance is the legally owned personal property left by a natural person at the time of their death. The inheritance that cannot be inherited according to the law or according to its nature shall not be inherited. In short, the inheritance is the property owned by the deceased before their death. However, these three types of funds are generated and distributed to the family members only after the death of the deceased, which does not meet the core definition of inheritance.

  Specifically, funeral expenses are special funds provided by the unit or social security institution to the family members for handling funeral affairs, such as cremation fees, cemetery fees, etc., which are used exclusively for this purpose and do not constitute part of the deceased's inheritance. Compensation benefits are provided to the close relatives of the deceased for spiritual comfort and material compensation, used to support the family members who rely on the deceased for living, and the recipients are the family members rather than the deceased. Hardship assistance funds (also known as hardship living assistance funds) are special assistance funds provided by the unit or social security institution to the close relatives who rely on the deceased's pre-death support and are living in difficulty, which also belong to the family members and are unrelated to the deceased's inheritance.

 Since these three types of funds do not constitute inheritance, the deceased had no right to dispose of them through a will. Even if the will specifies the distribution method, this part of the content is invalid. Their distribution has exclusive rules: funeral expenses are prioritized for offsetting actual and reasonable funeral expenses, and the remaining portion may be distributed by negotiation among close relatives; survivor's benefits and hardship subsidies are distributed according to the statutory succession order in Article  1127   of the Civil Code, with the first-order heirs (spouse, children, parents) distributing first; if there are no first-order heirs, the second-order heirs (siblings, grandparents, grandparents-in-law) distribute, taking into account the closeness of the relatives to the deceased in terms of their lives, economic dependence, and the fulfillment of filial obligations.

In summary, funeral expenses, compensation for bereavement, and hardship assistance funds are not inheritance, and cannot be inherited according to a will. Clarifying this point can avoid disputes among family members over property distribution and better maintain family harmony.