Intestacy
If you die without a Will, you are deemed to die "intestate".
If you die intestate, then laws known as the Intestacy Rules will decide how your
assets are distributed - not you.
A brief summary is that, when there is no Will, property goes to the nearest relatives. The order is spouse, children, parents and so on.
In general, unmarried couples get nothing from each others estate.
But that is not the whole story - it gets more complicated. Look at
this chart of the intestacy rules
for the full details.
Examples
John and Jane are unmarried and live together in a house owned by
John. Jane has a young child by a previous relationship. If
John dies without a Will, neither Jane or the child would get anything from his
estate. It would all go to John's blood relatives - including the house.
Mark and Mary are married with 2 children. Mark dies without writing a Will and
leaves an estate of £250,000. Mary will get £125,000 and a life interest in £62,500.
The 2 children will each receive £31,250.
If Mark and John had written a Will, then their estates would have gone where the
wanted. So forget about the problems that intestacy might cause and contact
Legal Services UK to write a Will.