News In Focus
15 April 2009
SLC unveils inheritance law shake up
The Scottish Law Commission (SLC) has unveiled its report to the Scottish Government with plans to modernise Scotland’s wills and inheritance system.
Professor Joseph Thomson, the lead commissioner on the Succession project said: "The aim is to simplify the law radically by providing rules which are easily understood and which at the same time reflect the nature of family structures in contemporary Scotland."
The report recommends that when a person dies without making a will, the deceased's surviving spouse or civil partner will inherit the whole estate up to the value of a threshold sum, after which the remainder of the estate will be shared equally with the deceased's issue.
The report proceeds on the basis that the threshold sum should be £300,000 but recognises that the precise sum is a political question for the Scottish Parliament. Where there is no surviving spouse or civil partner, the deceased's issue will inherit the whole estate.
If there is a will and the deceased's surviving spouse or civil partner is disinherited, the report recommends that they will be entitled to a legal share amounting to 25% of what they would have inherited if the deceased had died intestate. If children are disinherited, the report offers two possible scenarios. First, the children would be entitled to a legal share amounting to 25% of what they would have inherited if the deceased had died intestate.
Secondly, and more radically, dependent children should be entitled to a capital sum
calculated by reference to their maintenance needs: but otherwise a person would be free to leave his estate as he or she chose and his or her wishes could not be disturbed by claims from adult children. Which scheme should be adopted is again a political question for the Scottish Parliament.
The report recommends that cohabitants should be entitled to a percentage of what they would have received if they had been the deceased's spouse or civil partner. The appropriate percentage will be determined by the cohabitant's relationship with the deceased.
To read the Scottish Law Commission’s full Report on Succession, click here