Sylvday is right, but jointly held property is excluded from the intestacy rules - therefore if your house is in joint names it will pass to your wife on your death and vice versa, even if it is worth �1million! The problem would be if you held the house as "tenants in common", this is usually done for inheritance tax planning purposes, in which case there would be a will in place anyway. If you are worried, check with the solicitor who handled the purchase. Also, for Inheritance Tax purposes, if you both die at exactly the same time you are deemed to both have half the estate - it would however be physically divided up according to who was the elder, under the terms of the will or intestacy rules.