The objective of this research is to analyze two institutions of inheritance law; the freedom to testate and the legitimary right, with the purpose of concluding which of them should be preferred and which of them protects the family interest. To achieve this purpose, the theories that discuss the facts through doctrines, official websites, laws, national and international jurisprudence and an exhaustive analysis of comparative law were selected. The freedom to testate and the legitimary right are institutions that have been highly discussed in the doctrine; and through systematic documentary analysis, the theoretical contributions are analyzed to achieve the expected results; the legitimate institution has been adopted by most of the countries of the world since its purpose is the protection of family status based on the pro hominis principle. There are countries that take the criterion of test freely; for example, Panama, because they consider that the person can hand over their assets before, they die with full autonomy; there are others who follow the criterion that the actions of the testator are not considered free based on the legitimate right. Practically all the legislations that follow the criterion of the Napoleonic Code have institutionalized the legitimate. Article 1239 of the Colombian Civil Code (2012) says that the legitime is that share of the assets of a deceased that the law assigns to certain people called legitimarios and article 1240 of the same code says: Legitimate children are legitimate, adoptive and extramarital children personally, or represented by their legitimate or extramarital offspring; The ancestors; The adoptive parents and, The blood parents of the adopted child in a simple way.
