The Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Act 2011 (c. 7) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom altering the rules on inheritance in England and Wales.
Under the forfeiture rule of English common law, a person may not inherit from someone whom he or she has unlawfully killed. In 2000, the Court of Appeal used that rule to disinherit not only a murderer but also the murderer’s descendants. The Law Commission published a consultation paper covering the issue in October 2003 followed by a final report on 27 July 2005. Their recommendations became the basis for this Act.[2]
Under the Act, if a person loses their right to inheritance through the forfeiture rule, or through disclaiming it, that person is to be treated (for purposes of determining inheritance) as having died immediately prior to the testator or the intestate. The Act amends the Administration of Estates Act 1925 and Wills Act 1837 accordingly.
The Act received its Royal Assent on 12 July 2011, and came into force on 1 February 2012.[1]
Intestacy is the condition of the estate of a person who dies without having in force a valid will or other binding declaration. Alternatively this may also apply where a will or declaration has been made, but only applies to part of the estate; the remaining estate forms the "intestate estate". Intestacy law, also referred to as the law of descent and distribution, refers to the body of law that determines who is entitled to the property from the estate under the rules of inheritance.
Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; committing adultery with the sovereign's consort, with the sovereign's eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the throne; levying war against the sovereign and adhering to the sovereign's enemies, giving them aid or comfort; and attempting to undermine the lawfully established line of succession. Several other crimes have historically been categorised as high treason, including counterfeiting money and being a Catholic priest.
In common law jurisdictions, probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased, or whereby the estate is settled according to the laws of intestacy in the state of residence of the deceased at time of death in the absence of a legal will.
A holographic will, or olographic testament, is a will and testament which is a holographic document, meaning that it has been entirely handwritten and signed by the testator.
The Administration of Estates Act 1925 is an Act passed in 1925 by the British Parliament that consolidated, reformed, and simplified the rules relating to the administration of estates in England and Wales.
The Treason Act 1351 is an Act of the Parliament of England wherethrough, according to William Blackstone, common law treason offences were enumerated and no new offences were, by statute, created. It is one of the earliest English statutes still in force, although it has been very significantly amended. It was extended to Ireland in 1495 and to Scotland in 1708. The Act was passed at Westminster in the Hilary term of 1351, in the 25th year of the reign of Edward III and was entitled "A Declaration which Offences shall be adjudged Treason". It was passed to clarify precisely what was treason, as the definition under common law had been expanded rapidly by the courts until its scope was controversially wide. The Act was last used to prosecute William Joyce in 1945 for collaborating with Germany in World War II.
In the United Kingdom, inheritance tax is a transfer tax. It was introduced with effect from 18 March 1986, replacing capital transfer tax. The UK has the fourth highest inheritance tax rate in the world, according to conservative think tank, the Tax Foundation, though only a very small proportion of the population pays it. 3.7% of deaths recorded in the UK in the 2020-21 tax year resulted in inheritance tax liabilities. Other countries such as China, Russia and India have no inheritance tax, whilst Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Norway and Israel have all chosen to abolish succession taxes.
The slayer rule, in the U.S. law of inheritance, stops a person inheriting property from a person they murdered.
Marriage is available in England and Wales to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples and is legally recognised in the forms of both civil and religious marriage. Marriage laws have historically evolved separately from marriage laws in other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. There is a distinction between religious marriages, conducted by an authorised religious celebrant, and civil marriages, conducted by a state registrar. The legal minimum age to enter into a marriage in England and Wales is 18 since 27 February 2023. Previously the minimum age of marriage was 16, with parental permission. This also applies to civil partnerships.
International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate of a person who has died. However, this distinction is not always observed; for example, the UK's "inheritance tax" is a tax on the assets of the deceased, and strictly speaking is therefore an estate tax.
The Forfeiture Act 1870 is a British Act of Parliament that abolished the automatic forfeiture of goods and land as a punishment for treason and felony. It does not apply to Scotland, which did not fully abolish forfeiture until the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1949. Prior to the Act being passed, a person convicted of treason or felony automatically and permanently forfeited all of his lands and possessions to the Crown. The old offence of praemunire, which was also punished with forfeiture, was only a misdemeanour, and so the Act did not apply to it.
The Equality Act 2010, often erroneously called the Equalities Act 2010, is an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed during the Brown ministry with the primary purpose of consolidating, updating and supplementing the numerous prior Acts and Regulations, that formed the basis of anti-discrimination law in mostly England, Scotland and Wales; some sections also apply to Northern Ireland. These consisted, primarily, of the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and three major statutory instruments protecting discrimination in employment on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.
The nil rate band (NRB) is a term defined and used within the tax legislation of the United Kingdom which establishes the threshold below which some or all of the value of a gift, a death estate, or assets held within a trust, is subject to a zero rate of Inheritance Tax in the United Kingdom on an occasion of charge to Inheritance Tax. An occasion of charge to Inheritance Tax may not only be the death of an individual, but may also the date of a gift or of another act causing a transfer of value to occur from one person to another person, trust or entity.
The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted to amend, codify and secularize the law relating to intestate or unwilled succession, among Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs. The Act lays down a uniform and comprehensive system of inheritance and succession into one Act. The Hindu woman's limited estate is abolished by the Act. Any property possessed by a Hindu female is to be held by her absolute property and she is given full power to deal with it and dispose it of by will as she likes. Parts of this Act was amended in December 2004 by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005.
The Inheritance Act 1975 is an act of the United Kingdom Parliament concerning inheritance in England and Wales. It has been amended, for example to take into account civil partnerships.
In modern U.S. usage, forfeiture is deprivation or destruction of a right in consequence of the non-performance of some obligation or condition. It can be accidental, and therefore is distinguished from waiver. In the law of England and Wales, the forfeiture rule is the rule of law which prevents a killer from inheriting the estate of a person they have unlawfully killed. The term also refers to the rule in English law under which an insured person who makes a fraudulent insurance claim loses their claim: this rule was derived from common law until the passage of the Insurance Act 2015, which "puts the common law rule of forfeiture on a statutory footing".
The South African law of succession prescribes the rules which determine the devolution of a person's estate after his death, and all matters incidental thereto. It identifies the beneficiaries who are entitled to succeed to the deceased's estate, and the extent of the benefits they are to receive, and determines the different rights and duties that persons may have in a deceased's estate. It forms part of private law.
The Perth Agreement was made in Australia in 2011 by the prime ministers of what were then the sixteen states known as Commonwealth realms, all recognising Elizabeth II as their head of state. The document agreed that the governments of the realms would amend their laws concerning the succession to their shared throne and related matters. The changes, in summary, comprised:
Under the English common law rule known as the 'forfeiture rule', a person who has unlawfully killed another is barred from acquiring any benefit as a consequence of the killing, and all inheritance and other rights are normally forfeit. The Forfeiture Act 1982 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which allows the court to relax or to set aside operation of the rigid common law rule where "the justice of the case" so requires.
The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the laws of succession to the British throne in accordance with the 2011 Perth Agreement. The Act replaced male-preference primogeniture with absolute primogeniture for those in the line of succession born after 28 October 2011, which means the eldest child, regardless of gender, precedes any siblings. The Act also repealed the Royal Marriages Act 1772, ended disqualification of a person who married a Roman Catholic from succession, and removed the requirement for those outside the first six persons in line to the throne to seek the Sovereign's approval to marry. It came into force on 26 March 2015, at the same time as the other Commonwealth realms implemented the Perth Agreement in their own laws.
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