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In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

All praise is due to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon His Messenger, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

Yes. If your husband validly gifted you the family home through a completed hibah (هبة) during his lifetime, the property becomes yours and will not form part of his estate for distribution under farāʾiḍ. However, the gift's validity depends on whether the conditions of hibah were fulfilled.

In Islamic jurisprudence, hibah refers to the voluntary transfer of ownership of property to another person without compensation during the donor's lifetime.

Farāʾiḍ, on the other hand, governs the distribution of a deceased person's property at the time of death, after settling applicable debts and other prior obligations. A husband is permitted to give property to his wife during his lifetime. Once the gift is validly completed, she becomes its rightful owner. Consequently, the gifted property is no longer part of the husband's estate and is not subject to distribution among his heirs.

According to Islamic jurisprudence, particularly the Shāfiʿī school, a completed hibah requires the following:

1. Ownership: Your husband must have legally owned the property he intended to give.

2. Offer and acceptance: He must have clearly expressed his intention to gift the property, and you must have accepted it. 

3. Transfer of possession (qabd): The property must have been placed under your ownership and control, whether through an appropriate physical or legally recognised constructive transfer. The gift must have taken effect while he was alive, rather than being intended to take effect only after his death.

Therefore, merely signing a Declaration of Hibah does not necessarily establish that the transfer was completed. The actual terms of the document, the transfer of ownership and the applicable legal procedures must be examined.

Your husband's continued residence in the gifted family home does not, by itself, invalidate the hibah. If ownership was genuinely transferred to you and your husband continued occupying the property with your permission, the gift may remain valid. However, if he retained exclusive ownership and control while the declaration merely promised that the house would become yours upon his death, the arrangement requires a different legal assessment.

In particular, a gift intended to take effect only upon death may be treated as a waṣiyyah (bequest), rather than an ordinary lifetime hibah.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ أَعْطَى كُلَّ ذِي حَقٍّ حَقَّهُ فَلَا وَصِيَّةَ لِوَارِثٍ

"Allah has given everyone entitled to a right their due right, so there is no bequest for an heir."

(Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 2870; Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī, 2120)

Since a wife is already a legal heir, a bequest in her favour generally requires the consent of the other entitled heirs after the husband's death.

Similarly, a gift made during a terminal illness (maraḍ al-mawt) may be subject to restrictions applicable to bequests. An ordinary completed gift made years earlier while the husband was healthy is not subject to those restrictions merely because he subsequently dies.

A properly executed Declaration of Hibah can provide important evidence of the transfer. Its legal effectiveness, however, depends on its wording, whether its conditions were fulfilled, and the laws governing property ownership in the relevant country.

To Conclude 

If your husband gifted you the family home during his lifetime and the hibah was validly completed, the house belongs entirely to you and is excluded from his estate for faraid distribution. His other heirs would have no inheritance claim over that property simply because they are his heirs.

However, if the declaration did not complete the transfer of ownership, or if the gift was conditional upon his death, the ruling may differ.

We therefore recommend having a qualified Islamic scholar or Sharīʿah adviser familiar with the property laws of the country concerned review the Declaration of Hibah.

Allah knows best.