What happens if you die without a will? Intestacy rules explained (UK)
1 August 2026 · Inherit Vault
Dying without a will is called dying intestate, and it's far more common than people think: most surveys put it at over half of UK adults. What happens next isn't up to family discussion or fairness, it's a fixed legal formula, the rules of intestacy, and they rarely match what people assume.
The biggest myth
Unmarried partners inherit nothing under intestacy, no matter how long you lived together or how entangled your finances are. Only a spouse or civil partner counts. If you're cohabiting and unmarried, your partner could be left with no automatic right to your estate at all, even the family home, unless it was owned as joint tenants.
Married with children
A spouse or civil partner receives the first £322,000 (as of 2023, reviewed periodically) plus all personal belongings, and half of whatever remains above that. The other half of the remainder is split between the children. A modest estate, house included, can be entirely absorbed by that first slice, leaving children nothing; a larger one splits in ways few couples would actually choose.
No spouse, no children
The order moves through parents, then siblings, then half-siblings, then grandparents, then aunts and uncles, each tier only inheriting if every tier above them is empty. Estranged relatives you haven't spoken to in decades can inherit ahead of a lifelong partner or a close friend.
Nobody at all
If no qualifying relative can be found, the estate passes to the Crown, this is called bona vacantia. It's rare, but it happens most often precisely because nobody left a map of who they were or who mattered to them, an intestacy search runs on official records, not on friendship.
Who has to sort it out
Without a will there's no executor either, the intestacy rules also decide who has the right to apply to administer the estate (called letters of administration instead of probate), usually the closest qualifying relative, whether or not they want the job or are equipped for it.
A will fixes the who. It still doesn't fix the other problem: even a named executor has to find everything first, every account, every policy, every provider, often starting from nothing but a stack of unopened post. That's the gap Inherit Vault closes, a will says who gets what, your vault tells your executor where it actually is.
Leave your family a map, not a mystery.
Inherit Vault is the UK's digital inheritance vault: every account, policy, and instruction your family will need, encrypted so only you can read it, released to your executor when it genuinely matters.
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