- If a couple are living together but aren’t married or in a civil partnership, the surviving partner has no claim to the deceased partner’s estate. The law does not recognise these ‘common law’ partnerships, although surveys show that many people still think they have rights if they live together and aren’t married.
- If a couple is married and one of them dies intestate, the surviving spouse does not automatically inherit everything. They could receive just the statutory spousal allowance, with the rest of the estate being divided between the deceased person’s children, parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
- If both parents die intestate and if their relatives cannot decide who will have guardianship of the children, the courts will take over this decision. The courts will place the children where they see fit, which could be in the care of social services.
- If a person remarries and does not make a new Will, their existing Will won’t remain in force and they will be considered to have died intestate. The exception to this is if the person inserts a special clause in the Will before remarrying.
- If a person’s Will is drawn up before their last child or children are born, the children born after the Will is created won’t automatically inherit anything if their parent dies without changing the Will. Again, the exception to this is when a clause is inserted in the Will which covers the entitlement of any children born after it has been written.
- Stepchildren have no automatic rights to a stepparent’s estate.
- Many people think that if they die intestate, their closest relatives will decide who gets their assets. This is not the case. There are strict rules around who inherits when you die without a Will, and in some cases your entire estate could go to the Crown.
- There is no automatic entitlement to public funding or legal aid if a Will is contested. This can be an extremely expensive process, possibly involving the services of a genealogy expert if the person contesting the Will has to prove that they’re related to the deceased. The legal process of contesting a Will can take years and cause great distress to surviving family members.
- If a person wishes to exclude someone from their Will, they must add a Letter of Memorandum to the Will stating who is to be excluded and why. Otherwise, the Will could be contested and some or all of the deceased’s estate could end up going to someone who they would not want to inherit
Making sure your money goes where you want, when you are no longer in control!
