money after death

[gina32]

what happens to any money left after a death and no children only ne[phews and nieces and no will, thanks

[JonnyBoy12]

You leave it all to me as a grateful fellow ABer, and I say "Thank you very much". Seriously though the Will Society should know, and their site is listed below. I did have a sheet entitled "What happens when you die without making a Will", but seem to have lost it. Basically it is a free for all within all blood relatives, in this case nephews and neices, but this will have to be done with a lawyer. Anyone can make a claim on this estate, so we really all should make a will to avoid this. In some cases the lawyers get most of the estate in legal fees.

You are not "signing your death warrant" when you make your own will, so please do it now, if you have not done so. I made mine over 15 years ago, at the age of 21, and am still alive. Funny thing that.

http://www.thesocietyofwillwriters.co.uk/index .html

[Rollo]

The law sets out who inherits and what proportions they get:


http://www.desktoplawyer.co.uk/dt/browse/law/i ndex.cfm?fuseaction=ViewContent&sid=75956&aid= 34916

[Rollo]

Who gets the estate if someone did not make a Will?
The right of a person to benefit on intestacy depends on their relationship with the deceased and whether any closer relatives have survived. The general principle is that the estate is shared by the relatives in the highest category, to the exclusion of relatives in a later category but it is more complicated if there is a surviving spouse.

The spouse has priority over all other categories of beneficiaries, but may have to share the residuary estate with other beneficiaries. If the person who dies intestate has no surviving spouse or civil partner, their estate passes to the following in order:

Their children, subject to the property being placed in trust but if none, to
Their parents, equally if both alive, but if none to
Their brothers and sisters subject to the property being placed in trust but if none to
Their half brothers and sisters subject to the property being placed in trust, but if none to
Their grandparents equally if more than one, but if none to
Their uncles and aunts subject to the property being placed in trust, but if none to
Their half uncles and aunts subject to the property being placed in trust, but if none to
The Crown.

[Ethel]

It depends on where you live - England is different to Scotland, for example, and how much money is involved.

Assuming England and under �200k

If there is no husband or wife - parents share equally;
No parents - brothers and sisters share equally
No brother and sisters - half brothers and half sisters share
No half brothers and sisters - grandparents share equally
No grandparents - aunts and uncles share
No aunts and uncles - the Crown gets the lot

Now, in your scenario there are nieces and nephews, which means there must have been brothers and / or sisters, or at least one sibling.
The assets are divided amongst the brothers and sisters as if they were alive, and from their apportioned to the nieces and nephews.
To keep simple - estate is worth �100,000 and the deceased had one brother and one sister, now dead. They would be entitled to �50,000 each. The brother has a son, and the sister two daughters. The nephew gets his share of his father's legacy - �50,000; the nieces get equal shares of their mother's - �25,000 each

[Rollo]

My advice. Make a will and thereby cut out relatives you don't want to inherit from you.

:-))

[gina32]

thanks for the replies, no other living relatives except nephews and nieces, no will made and not a lot of money about 20K and no property, does that make it any easier to understand? thanks

[Buenchico]

I'm always slightly wary when someone refers to 'no other living relatives' since people often don't count second cousins when they're counting relatives. Second cousins are people who have the same great-grandparents as the deceased person. The deceased person may never have known them (or even know of their existence) but, under certain circumstances they may still have a claim to a share of the deceased person's estate.

However, from the information in your post, it looks likely that only the nieces and nephews will inherit. However, they only do so if they're related through the brother and sisters of the deceased person. Nieces and nephews acquired through marriage don't inherit.

The easiest way to think of it is to consider all of the deceased person's brothers and sisters . Ignore anyone who died childless. Now share the estate equally among each of the remaining (deceased) brothers and sisters. Each (deceased) brother's or sister's share is then divided equally between their children.

As an example, let's assume that the deceased person had 2 brothers (one of whom died childless) and 1 sister. The childless brother is ignored, so the remaining brother and the sister each 'inherit' (even though deceased) half of the estate.

The relevant brother left one child, so that child now gets his father's half. The sister left two children, so they share their mother's half of the estate (i.e. they get a quarter each).

Chris

[gina32]

thank you for that, very grateful