{"id":213,"date":"2017-08-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/2017\/08\/08\/dying-without-a-will-bad-idea\/"},"modified":"2017-08-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T23:00:00","slug":"dying-without-a-will-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/2017\/08\/08\/dying-without-a-will-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Dying without a Will, bad idea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many people die without making a Will. In legal terms, this means they die &ldquo;intestate&rdquo;. When this happens, the estate must be shared out according to certain rules. Individuals who may benefit under these rules are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Married partners and civil partners at the time of death. This includes separated partners but not divorced partners or a civil partner if a civil partnership has ended.<\/li>\n<li>Children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, if the estate is over a certain amount.<\/li>\n<li>Parents, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews.<\/li>\n<li>Grandparents, uncles and aunts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The order in which estates are distributed follow strict rules. For example, if there is a surviving partner, a child only inherits from the estate if it is valued at more than &pound;250,000.<\/p>\n<p>Partners who are unmarried, or not in a formal civil partnership, have no claim on their deceased partner&rsquo;s estate.<\/p>\n<p>When family groups are affected by divorce, re-marriage, or co-habiting and there are children involved, the actual rights of family members to share in a deceased&rsquo;s estate can be complex, and may result in assets of the estate being distributed in a way at variance with the unwritten wishes of the deceased person.<\/p>\n<p>The estates of persons, who die intestate and have no relatives, are passed to the Crown under the &ldquo;Bona Vacantia&rdquo; rules.<\/p>\n<p>For these reasons, everyone should prepare a Will and make their intentions known and legally enforceable.<\/p>\n<p>Taxation will also need to be considered. Without a Will, Inheritance Tax may take a disproportionate share of an estate. The current rate applied on chargeable assets on death is 40%.<\/p>\n<p>Readers of this article who have not made a Will or considered the Inheritance Tax consequences of their death should take advice now. Failure to do so may create distressing situations for surviving family members and result in a large chunk of your hard-won assets being paid over in taxation. We can help. Please call to arrange an initial fact-find meeting.<\/p>\n<!-- -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people die without making a Will. In legal terms, this means they die &ldquo;intestate&rdquo;. When this happens, the estate must be shared out according to certain rules. Individuals who may benefit under these rules are: Married partners and civil partners at the time of death. This includes separated partners but not divorced partners or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/duffyregan.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}