What happens if you die without a will UK? Intestacy rules explained

So, what happens if you die without a will UK-wide? You're said to have died intestate, and a fixed legal hierarchy called the intestacy rules decides who inherits your estate - not your personal wishes. Your spouse or civil partner, children, and other relatives inherit in a set order, while unmarried partners, stepchildren, and close friends receive nothing, regardless of how close you were.

Your estate is everything you own at death: property, savings, investments, possessions, and any life insurance or pension death benefits that don't already have a named beneficiary. Debts, including any outstanding mortgage or secured loan, are paid out of the estate before anything is distributed to beneficiaries.

The intestacy rules described in this guide apply to England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland use different systems with their own thresholds, covered later in this guide.

It's also possible to have a partial intestacy. This happens when a valid will exists but doesn't cover all of your assets, perhaps because it was written years ago and never updated. Any assets left out of the will are then distributed under the intestacy rules, even though a will exists for the rest of the estate.

The intestacy rules for England and Wales follow a strict order. Who inherits, and how much, depends on whether you have a spouse or civil partner, whether you have children, and the total value of your estate.

If you're married or in a civil partnership

If your estate is worth £322,000 or less, your spouse or civil partner inherits everything, and your children (if you have any) receive nothing directly. If your estate is worth more than £322,000, your spouse or civil partner receives the first £322,000 plus half of whatever's left, and your children share the other half equally between them. Your spouse or civil partner must survive you by at least 28 days to inherit under these rules.

If you have children but no spouse or civil partner

Your children inherit the whole estate in equal shares once they reach 18. If one of your children has already died before you, their own children (your grandchildren) usually inherit that share in their place.

If you have no spouse, civil partner, or children

The estate passes to your closest surviving relatives in a strict order: parents first, then full siblings, then half-siblings, then grandparents, then aunts and uncles, and finally their children. If no qualifying relative can be found anywhere in that order, the estate passes to the Crown under the doctrine of bona vacantia.

This is one of the biggest risks of dying without a will, and it catches out an estimated 3.6 million cohabiting couples across the UK. Cohabiting partners have no automatic right to inherit under UK intestacy law, no matter how long you've lived together, how many children you share, or how financially intertwined your lives are.

The only remedy available to an unmarried partner left out under intestacy is to apply to court under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. This route can be expensive, isn't guaranteed to succeed, and can take months or years to resolve, often at an emotionally difficult time.

Worked example: if you and your partner own a home together as tenants in common (rather than joint tenants) and you die without a will, your share of the property does not automatically pass to your partner. Instead, it passes to your relatives under the intestacy rules, potentially leaving your partner facing a claim on the home they live in.

The key distinction is between joint tenancy, where the surviving owner automatically inherits the whole property by survivorship, and tenancy in common, where each person's share forms part of their own estate and is distributed under the intestacy rules if there's no will. We cover this in more detail in the section on your home below.

If both parents die without a will, a court appoints a guardian for any children under 18. This is one of the most overlooked consequences of dying intestate.

• You have no say over who raises your children if there's no will naming a guardian.
• The court considers the child's best interests, but has no formal record of what you would have wanted.
• Stepchildren do not inherit under the intestacy rules unless they've been legally adopted, even if you raised them as your own.
• Children inherit their share at 18 with no conditions attached. A will can defer this to a later age, such as 25, if you'd prefer them to be a little older before receiving a lump sum.

Only a will lets you name a guardian for your children, giving the court a clear record of your wishes rather than leaving the decision entirely to a judge who has never met your family.

The rules described above apply to England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland are separate legal jurisdictions with their own intestacy systems, so what happens if you die without a will can look quite different depending on where you live.

In Scotland, a system of 'prior rights' and 'legal rights' applies before the rest of the estate is distributed. Legal rights, sometimes called legitim, give a spouse, civil partner, and children a fixed entitlement to a portion of the estate that cannot be overridden, even by a will. In Northern Ireland, the structure is broadly similar to England and Wales, but the statutory legacy threshold for a surviving spouse with children is different.

Because Scotland and Northern Ireland operate under separate legal systems, it's worth getting local legal advice if your estate, or any part of it, is based there. Citizens Advice can help point you toward a solicitor in your area who specialises in wills and intestacy.

Dying without a will can create an inheritance tax (IHT) liability that a well-structured will would have avoided. Transfers between spouses and civil partners are exempt from IHT, but once assets pass to children or other relatives above the nil-rate band of £325,000 (2026), IHT is charged at 40% on the amount above the threshold.

A will lets you plan around this using tools such as the spousal exemption, the residence nil-rate band of £175,000 (2026) for a home left to direct descendants, and charitable giving, which can reduce the taxable estate or the rate of tax that applies. Intestacy removes this flexibility entirely - the rigid distribution order takes no account of tax efficiency, which can mean more of the estate is lost to tax than necessary.

How your property is affected depends on the way it's owned. If you own your home as joint tenants, the surviving owner automatically inherits the whole property by survivorship - this happens regardless of whether you have a will, and the intestacy rules don't apply to that share at all. If you own it as tenants in common, your share of the property forms part of your estate and passes under the intestacy rules, which can force a sale if the relatives who inherit your share can't agree with the surviving owner on what to do.

A mortgage or any other secured borrowing on the property does not disappear when someone dies. The estate must keep up repayments or repay the debt from the estate's assets, and creditors are paid before anything is distributed to beneficiaries. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or any other debt secured on it, so personal representatives need to manage this carefully during probate or intestacy administration.

Depending on the family's circumstances, options such as intestacy rules and remortgaging, secured loans and probate, or equity release and your estate can sometimes help a surviving family member keep the home rather than being forced to sell it to settle a mortgage or pay other beneficiaries their share.

Dying intestate is typically slower and more expensive to administer than an estate with a valid will. Instead of a named executor applying for a Grant of Probate, a court-appointed administrator must apply for Grant of Letters of Administration, which usually takes longer because there's no one already designated to manage the process.

For a larger estate, the gap between solicitor fees on an intestate administration and the upfront cost of a will can run into thousands of pounds, on top of the emotional cost of family disagreements over an estate with no clear instructions.

Digital assets are a growing gap in estate planning that intestacy doesn't handle well. Cryptocurrency, online banking logins, PayPal balances, investment app accounts, and digital businesses all form part of your estate in theory, but in practice an administrator often can't access them without your login credentials or specific legal authority.

• Cryptocurrency wallets can be permanently inaccessible without the private keys or recovery phrase.
• Online-only bank and investment accounts may not appear on any paper statement an administrator can find.
• PayPal balances, digital businesses, and subscription-based income streams are easy to overlook entirely.

Without a will setting out your digital assets and how to access them, these can be permanently lost rather than passed on. It's worth keeping a separate, securely stored digital assets memorandum alongside your will, listing what exists and how an executor can access it, without putting sensitive passwords directly into the will itself.

Yes. A Deed of Variation lets the beneficiaries who would inherit under the intestacy rules agree to redirect some or all of that inheritance to someone else, within two years of the death. This can be a way to correct an outcome the family feels doesn't reflect what the person who died would have wanted, such as providing for a cohabiting partner who was left with nothing.

All beneficiaries affected by the change must agree to it, and it can't be done unilaterally by one family member. A Deed of Variation can also have inheritance tax advantages if assets are redirected to a spouse, civil partner, or charity, since those transfers are usually exempt from IHT. Because of the legal and tax implications involved, a Deed of Variation needs to be drawn up by a solicitor rather than arranged informally between family members.

Everything covered in this guide can be avoided with a valid will. Our guide to writing a will in the UK walks through the process in more detail, including choosing an executor, naming a guardian for children, and deciding how to divide your estate.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by any of this, particularly after a recent bereavement, MoneyHelper (moneyhelper.org.uk, 0800 138 7777) provides impartial guidance on money and next steps, and is a good place to start alongside any legal advice you take.