Sections Contest Property disposition Common types Other types Governing doctrines 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.
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.
[3] 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.
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, 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: In the above "the statutory trusts" mean: Where no beneficiaries on the above list exist, the person's estate generally escheats (i.e. is legally assigned) to the Crown (via the Bona vacantia division of the Treasury Solicitor) or to the Duchy of Cornwall or Duchy of Lancaster when the deceased was a resident of either.
In limited cases a discretionary distribution might be made by one of these bodies to persons who would otherwise be without entitlement under strict application of the rules of inheritance.
As in England, most jurisdictions apply rules of intestate succession to determine next of kin who become legal heirs to the estate.
[7] Each of the separate states uses its own intestacy laws to determine the ownership of residents' intestate property.