Who inherits if someone dies without a will in the UK?

Full answer

Dying without a valid will means you die 'intestate', and the law -- not your wishes -- decides who inherits. In England and Wales the rules follow a fixed hierarchy. If you leave a spouse or civil partner and no children, the spouse inherits everything. If there are children, the spouse takes the personal possessions, a statutory legacy (a set sum fixed in law), and half of anything remaining, with the other half shared equally among the children. If there is no spouse, the estate passes to children, then to grandchildren, parents, siblings, and so on down the bloodline. The most important point is who is excluded. Unmarried partners ('common-law' partners, a status with no legal standing) inherit nothing under intestacy, no matter how long you lived together. Stepchildren you never legally adopted also inherit nothing. This is the single biggest reason cohabiting couples should make wills. Scotland and Northern Ireland apply their own distinct intestacy regimes with different priorities and shares -- in Scotland, for example, 'prior rights' and 'legal rights' give a surviving spouse and children specific entitlements -- so the outcome depends on where the deceased was domiciled. Intestacy also interacts with Inheritance Tax. For 2026/27 each person has a nil-rate band of GBP 325,000 plus, where a home passes to direct descendants, a residence nil-rate band of GBP 175,000, with 40% charged above the available threshold. Transfers to a spouse or civil partner are exempt, but because unmarried partners get nothing under intestacy, they cannot use that exemption either. The simplest fix is to write a will. Use an inheritance tax calculator to estimate any liability on the estate, but for the legal distribution itself check gov.uk or take advice from a solicitor.

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