Intestacy

Intestacy is the condition of the estate of a person who dies without a legally valid will, resulting in the distribution of their estate under statutory intestacy laws rather than by their expressed wishes. Alternatively this may also apply where a will or declaration has been made, but only applies to part of the estate; the remaining estate forms the "intestate estate". Intestacy law, also referred to as the law of descent and distribution, which vary by jurisdiction, refers to the body of law (statutory and case law), establish a hierarchy for inheritance, typically prioritizing close relatives such as spouses, children, and then extended family members and determines who is entitled to the property from the estate under the rules of inheritance.

Intestacy has a limited application in those jurisdictions that follow civil law or Roman law because the concept of a will is itself less important; the doctrine of forced heirship automatically gives a deceased person's next-of-kin title to a large part (forced estate) of the estate's property by operation of law, beyond the power of the deceased person to defeat or exceed by testamentary gift. A forced share (or legitime) can often only be decreased on account of some very specific misconduct by the forced heir. In matters of cross-border inheritance, the "laws of succession" is the commonplace term covering testate and intestate estates in common law jurisdictions together with forced heirship rules typically applying in civil law and Sharia law jurisdictions. After the Statute of Wills 1540, Englishmen (and unmarried or widowed women) could dispose of their lands and real property by a will. Their personal property could formerly be disposed of by a testament, hence the hallowed legal merism last will and testament.

Common law sharply distinguished between real property and chattels. Real property for which no disposition had been made by will passed by the law of kinship and descent; chattel property for which no disposition had been made by testament was escheat to the Crown, or given to the Church for charitable purposes. This law became obsolete as England moved from being a feudal to a mercantile society, and chattels more valuable than land were being accumulated by townspeople.

Where a person dies without leaving a will, the rules of succession of the person's place of habitual residence or of their domicile often apply, but it is also common for the jurisdiction where the property is located to govern its disposal, regardless of the decedent's residence or domicile. In certain jurisdictions such as France, Switzerland, the U.S. state of Louisiana, and much of the Islamic world, entitlements arise whether or not there was a will. These are known as forced heirship rights and are not typically found in common law jurisdictions, where the rules of succession without a will (intestate succession) play a back-up role where an individual has not (or has not fully) exercised their right to dispose of property in a will.

In most contemporary common-law jurisdictions, the law of intestacy is patterned after the common law of descent. Property goes first or in major part to a spouse, then to children and their descendants; if there are no descendants, the line of inheritance goes back up the family tree to the parents, the siblings, the siblings' descendants, the grandparents, the parents' siblings, and the parents' siblings' descendants, and usually so on further to the more remote degrees of kinship. The operation of these laws varies from one jurisdiction to another.

The rules of succession are the Intestacy Rules set out in the Administration of Estates Act 1925 (15 & 16 Geo. 5. c. 23) and associated legislation.

For deaths after 1 October 2014, the rules where someone dies intestate leaving a spouse or civil partner are as follows:

Where there is no spouse or civil partner, or the spouse or civil partner is already deceased, the assets pass in the following order of priority, such that no-one is entitled in any lower category if there is a living person entitled in a higher one: