For most people in the Uk, what occurs to your assets when you die is a relatively basic procedure: you both specify your wishes in a will or your estate passes to your subsequent of kin. But some folks have neither: no will, no identified up coming of kin. What comes about to their property is not so basic, and if you live in selected components of the United kingdom, even considerably less so.
As the Guardian’s investigations correspondent Maeve McClenaghan tells Nosheen Iqbal, if a human being dies in England and Wales with no will or up coming of kin, their cash goes to the Treasury. There is, having said that, an exception for individuals who die in pieces of England with historic links to two royal estates: the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. For all those who die in just the boundary of the ancient county palatinate of Lancashire, their assets, if unclaimed, go to the king’s non-public estate, the Duchy of Lancaster. It’s an archaic custom identified as bona vacantia.
The duchy has for a long time claimed that just after it collects bona vacantia funds and deducts specified costs, the proceeds go to charities. Nevertheless, the Guardian has discovered that a important portion of bona vacantia resources are secretly remaining used on renovating qualities owned by the king that are rented out for income by his estate.
Composite: Guardian Style and design/Francis Dias/NEWSPIX International
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