At-Home Series - Intestacy rules Part 2 - When the deceased leaves no spouse or civil partner
- Part one of this vlog covered the situation where the deceased dies leaving a spouse or civil partner. Part two will now cover the situation where the deceased dies without a spouse or civil partner.
- To recap, the intestacy rules are statutory rules that dictate how the deceased’s estate is to be distributed when they have died either intestate, or partially intestate.
- If the deceased dies leaving no surviving spouse, but does leave other relatives, the estate passes in a prescribed order, only passing to the next class if there are no surviving relatives in the preceding class.
- The order is as follows, issue (this includes all direct descendants. Including adopted and illegitimate children, but not stepchildren), parents, brothers and sisters, half brothers and sisters, grandparents, uncles and aunts and half uncles and aunts.
- The deceased’s estate will be split equally between each person who falls within the relevant class. If a person within a relevant class has died before the deceased, leaving children living at the time of the deceased’s death, those children will take their deceased’s parent share of the deceased’s estate.
- If the deceased dies leaving no relatives, their estate passes to the Crown.
- I hope this mini-series has emphasised how important it is, if you want to avoid the intestacy rules, and have your estate left in the way that you wish, to consult a solicitor to make sure that you leave a valid Will that deals with every asset of your estate.
