A death without a will hands the estate to a table Parliament wrote in 1925 and last re-priced in 2023. The table is not unkind, but it has never heard of the person it is dividing: it does not know about the partner of twenty years, the stepson, or the daughter who did the caring. This page sets out what it does, who it leaves out, and who has to do the work.
The order, with a spouse
The Act says that where the intestate, the person who died without a will, leaves a spouse or civil partner and no issue, meaning children or their descendants, the residuary estate, what is left after debts and costs, is held for the surviving spouse absolutely (Administration of Estates Act 1925, section 46, checked 1 November 2026). Everything, in other words.
Where there are children, the same section says the spouse takes the personal chattels, then a fixed net sum with simple interest from the date of death, and then half of what remains, with the other half held on the statutory trusts for the children. The fixed sum is £322,000 for deaths from 26 July 2023 (Administration of Estates Act 1925 (Fixed Net Sum) Order 2023, checked 1 November 2026). A £500,000 estate after a father’s death goes £322,000 plus £89,000 to the widow and £89,000 to the children. That illustration ignores the chattels, which she takes first, the interest, and anything such as a jointly owned home that passes outside the estate, covered below.
The order without one
Where there is no spouse or civil partner, the Act holds the estate for the children, and where there are none it works outwards: parents, then brothers and sisters of the whole blood, then of the half blood, then grandparents, then uncles and aunts (Administration of Estates Act 1925, section 46, checked 1 November 2026).
At the end of the list is the state. The Act says that in default of any person taking an absolute interest, the estate belongs to the Crown, or to the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duke of Cornwall, as ownerless goods, bona vacantia in the legal term. GOV.UK’s checker walks through the same order for a particular family (GOV.UK, Intestacy, checked 1 November 2026).
Who gets nothing
The people the rules leave out are the people most likely to be living in the house when someone dies. GOV.UK says a partner who was not married or in a civil partnership has no automatic right to inherit (GOV.UK, Intestacy, checked 1 November 2026).
GOV.UK’s probate guidance names the closest relatives as the spouse or civil partner, including if separated, then the children, including legally adopted children but not step-children (GOV.UK, Applying for probate: if there is not a will, checked 1 November 2026).
So a separated but undivorced spouse inherits, unless a court decree of judicial separation is in force, which the Matrimonial Causes Act says makes the property pass as if the spouse had died first (Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, section 18, checked 1 November 2026). A partner of twenty years does not; an adopted child inherits, and a stepchild does not. Friends, carers and charities are not in the table at all. For a partner or stepchild left out, the Inheritance Act claim is the only route, and the blended families page is about the will that would have prevented it.
What counts as personal chattels
The spouse’s first entitlement is the possessions, and the Act defines them: tangible movable property, other than money or securities for money, property used at the death solely or mainly for business, or property held solely as an investment (Administration of Estates Act 1925, section 55, checked 1 November 2026).
Furniture, the car, jewellery worn rather than held as an investment, and the contents of the house pass to the spouse before the £322,000 is counted. A painting bought as an investment does not.
What passes outside the rules
Not everything the person owned goes through the table. A home owned as joint tenants goes to the other owner automatically on death and cannot be left by will, while a share held as tenants in common can be (GOV.UK, Joint property ownership, checked 1 November 2026).
Joint bank accounts usually pass the same way, unless a parent added a child’s name only for convenience and never meant to share the money, in which case the balance can still be part of the estate.
Pensions are paid by the scheme, not under the will, and it normally follows the nomination form, and life insurance written in trust goes to the named beneficiary. For many couples the house and the pension are most of the estate, and the intestacy rules divide only what is left after they have gone their own way. Our inherited property page covers the joint tenancy rule in more detail.
Who deals with it
The probate rules set who may apply for the grant, in order: the surviving spouse or civil partner, then the children and the issue of any child who died first, then the father and mother, then brothers and sisters of the whole blood and their issue (Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987, rule 22, checked 1 November 2026).
GOV.UK says the most entitled person applies to become the administrator, and that a partner who was not married or in a civil partnership cannot apply (GOV.UK, Applying for probate: if there is not a will, checked 1 November 2026).
The grant is called letters of administration rather than probate, and our letters of administration page covers the application and why it takes longer. The administrator has the executor’s duties without the executor’s instructions.
Debts come first
An estate pays its debts before anyone inherits, and the funeral before the debts. Where the estate cannot pay everything, the insolvency order for deceased estates gives reasonable funeral, testamentary and administration expenses priority over the preferential debts that would otherwise come first (Administration of Insolvent Estates of Deceased Persons Order 1986, Schedule 1, checked 1 November 2026).
Relatives do not inherit debts. They inherit what is left after the debts, which in an insolvent estate is nothing, and an administrator who distributes before paying creditors can be personally liable. Our finding the assets page covers tracing what the person owned and owed.
The claim a partner can bring
The Inheritance Act lets a person the rules leave out ask the court for reasonable financial provision, and its list includes a partner who lived in the same household for the whole of the two years before the death as if married (Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, section 1, checked 1 November 2026).
The same list covers the spouse, a former spouse who has not remarried, a child, a person treated as a child of the family, and a person the deceased was maintaining, other than under a commercial arrangement for full payment. The deadline is short. The Act says an application may not be made, without the court’s permission, after six months from the date representation is first taken out (section 4, checked 1 November 2026). That runs from the grant, not the death, and our seeing and contesting a will page covers the claim.
Scotland
Scotland has its own intestacy law. A surviving spouse or civil partner first takes prior rights: the home up to £473,000 and furniture up to £29,000 (Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, section 8, checked 1 November 2026), plus £50,000 cash with children or £89,000 without (Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, section 9, checked 26 October 2026).
Those figures have stood since 1 February 2012 (SSI 2011/436, checked 26 October 2026). After prior rights come legal rights, a fixed share of the moveable estate that a spouse and children can claim whatever the will says, and only then the rest. A Scottish estate is wound up through confirmation rather than probate.
The will that would have changed it
Every gap on this page closes with a will. GOV.UK says your will lets you decide what happens to your money, property and possessions (GOV.UK, Making a will, checked 1 November 2026), and our wills hub covers what makes one valid, who writes it and why marriage cancels it.
Inheritance Tax is unchanged by the absence of a will, and the Inheritance Tax hub covers the thresholds the estate meets either way.