The bomb exploded at four in the afternoon in the law firm of Dr. Fernando Soto: MarÃa Kodama died without leaving a will. At least, that her lawyer with her general power of attorney – expired with the death of the widow of Jorge Luis Borges – knows.
In such a way that without a will, or holograph (in the handwriting of the deceased) or by a notary public, and without forced heirs (ancestors or descendants) or known relatives, all of Kodama’s assets –including the extremely valuable intellectual rights of the work de Borges – becomes a vacant inheritance. Once the legal deadlines have elapsed, that inheritance passes into the public domain, in this case the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, the last residence of MarÃa and the Jorge Luis Borges International Foundation, whose future also entered into a legal fog.
Taking into account all that is at stake, Soto appeared with a brief before the civil court number 94, in charge of the deputy judge MarÃa Verónica RamÃrez, requesting urgent protection measures, because they are not real estate, with property titles , those that are at risk, but the movable heritage: first editions, manuscripts, translations, decorations, objects and the rights of the work of Borges. Soto said this Monday at a press conference that there were also closed boxes whose content is unknown.
The lawyer, still moved by Kodama’s death, was still astonished because, according to what he was able to find out both from members of the Foundation and from MarÃa’s closest friends, although he expressed his last will verbally, he did not write it down. And the clerk who has the deeds to the deceased’s properties doesn’t have a will either.
In his court brief, the lawyer states: “MarÃa Kodama was an extremely active woman and she did not like to talk about her illnesses or her future death. The few times that she suffered from an illness or she was convalescing, she took great care of her, her privacy. As we constantly talked about the issues and legal cases in which he legally represented her, taking action against those who defamed her, more than once we talked about the future of Borges’s work when she was gone, and he told me that “he had everything arranged.” , that whoever was going to succeed her was going to be ‘even stricter than her’ in defending Borges’ workâ€.
Despite the forcefulness of his decision, he did not leave his last will in writing and for civil law it would remain as an expression of wishes. Yes, the titles of the properties that are the headquarters of the International Foundation and his house on RodrÃguez Peña y Juncal street, where he lived until moving to room 404 of the Lois Suits on Vicente López street in Recoleta, where he died.
In addition, the lawyer Soto asked the intervening judge in the open file as “assignment of process no. 021587/2023 Kodama, MarÃa S/Sucesión Vacante” that the designation of a curator and an administrator who will be in charge of everything related to the collection of rights and payment of obligations derived from the work of Borges be provided.
On the other hand, according to the lawyer, it will be left for later to determine what is relevant to what Maria Kodama left in the homes she rented in Paris and Geneva, for which purpose judges from both cities will have to intervene.
Getting to determine if the deceased has heirs on the side of her brother Jorge Kodama will also be difficult, because on the Dateas site the lawyer located two homonymous people with different document numbers. The succession case promises to be long.
With Kodama deceased, there are contracts that continue to be fulfilled. For how long? For the term established in those contracts. In the case of Borges’s work, Penguin Random House is the publishing group that publishes the most universal Argentine. As it became known, that contract still has a duration of two or three years. This means that royalties continue to accrue for this period, which in the future must be deposited in a judicial account linked to the probate proceeding.
In the midst of the tidal wave that began with the death without a will of MarÃa, Borges’s literary agent for the English-speaking market, Andrew Wylie (known as “the jackal”) contacted the lawyer Soto to find out how to continue with the issue of the rights.
©Clarin
