When do recent Rules of Intestacy changes take effect?

MobileSaver

In another thread I highlighted that recently the Rules of Intestacy had changed so that the surviving partner now gets the first £270,000 of the estate when previously they were only entitled to the first £250,000.

Does anyone know when this change takes effect? Is it for all estates finalised after the change came into effect or only for estates where the death occurred after the change came into effect?

JGB1955

The change took place on 6 February 2020 and applies to deaths on or after that date.

MobileSaver

JGB1955 said:

The change took place on 6 February 2020 and applies to deaths on or after that date.

Thanks, do you have a link to an official site/page confirming this? This is one of those cases where as soon as I posted the question here I thought I knew the answer.

My thinking was that if someone died on say 4th February then it would be highly unlikely they would check the standard Gov.uk Intestacy rules before 6th Feb and so the updated Gov site would (wrongly?) tell them the partner was entitled to the first £270,000. How would the executor ever know they had been given the wrong information?

xylophone

do you have a link to an official site/page confirming this?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statutory-legacy-fixed-sum

Keep_pedalling

That is a good question, the government’s web page for calculating who gets what in the case if intestacy really needs an extra step adding where you have to put in the date of death. 

MobileSaver

For anyone else reading this, the actual clarification is in the Act itself:

Administration of Estates Act 1925: SCHEDULE 1A Paragraph (3) Sub-paragraph (2)

(1) The Lord Chancellor may from time to time by order made by statutory instrument specify the amount of the fixed net sum.
(2) An order under sub-paragraph (1) relates only to deaths occurring after the coming into force of the order.

getmore4less

The full act is worth consulting as often sites can simplify too much.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/15-16/23/contents
It is the executors job to check the law at the time of death, not unknown to be years later.

MobileSaver

getmore4less said:

It is the executors job to check the law at the time of death, not unknown to be years later.

Agreed but in practice I suspect many executors would simply use the government's own site and have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the information given; with roughly 50,000 deaths a month and over half not having a will that is potentially tens of thousands of estates being wrongly distributed.