Abstract: Article 29 of the Property Law directly grants bequests the effect of property rights changes, on this practice, those with negative opinions have put forward various criticisms, but these criticisms are debatable. Under the current law, to directly grant a bequest the effect of property rights change will not cause significant system conflicts and bring harm to transaction safety, instead, it can better implement the legal principle that the changes of property rights due to bequests should be in line with the changes of the property rights due to the legacy division for the application of the same rules, thus it is worthy of recognition. Since the changes of property rights due to inheritance has been interpreted as beginning with the death of the decedent, the retrospective interpretation of the “beginning of the bequest” as stipulated in Article 29 of the Property Law shall also be the same, that is, the property right obtained from the bequest should be interpreted as having come into effect from the death of the legator.

Key words: bequests; property rights changes; inheritance; bequest consensus; retrospectiveism