I’ve read in the papers that the statutory legacy is being increased to £322,000. What is the statutory legacy and how would the increase affect me?
To start at the end, the statutory legacy, increase or no, would only affect the unfortunate, a class from which you’ve excised yourself, on the one hand, and the unwise, a body of which you’re not a member, on the other hand.
The statutory legacy is the value of assets a civil partner or spouse would receive under current intestacy rules. By the rules of intestacy, the spouse gets a certain amount of money, or goods to the value – usually they have a right to the family home in satisfaction of the statutory legacy. The spouse or the civil partner would, beyond the statutory legacy, get the deceased’s personal property—their chattels, including the Rolex, the Roller, the Rembrandt.
The rest of the deceased’s stuff ’s diviyd up depending on, in the first, how much of value there was over and beyond the statutory legacy and secondly, what family the dead person had. The net of family might be cast so far, thrown so wide as to include children of the dead person’s deceased relatives.
You might have heard of Constable’s work in which he claimed ne’er to have seen an ugly thing – while no literary critics, we may only surmise he never saw the evil effects of intestacy. There are few things uglier than intestacy at full pelt; the costs, the anguish, the ill will. Intestacy’s not unlike a tumour – benign, it’s almost mirth inducing, but when it’s of cancer, best take flight.
The rise in the statutory legacy to effect on 26th July last affects deaths that occurred from that date.
To end at the end, the statutory legacy, increase or no, would only affect the unfortunate, a class from which you’ve removed yourself , and the unwise, a body of which you’re not a member.
