Inheritance when the parents and children die at the same time

Madeinireland101

Hi,

if you have mirror wills and both you as parents and the children all die together what happens to your estate?

Is it the case that the youngest child is considered to have died last and therefore inherits all within the estate and it’s distributed according to their will or intestate if they don’t have a will? As I believe there is some simultaneous death rule???

Or

If you have a follow on clause in your mirror wills distributing the estate to nieces and nephews do they take the estate between them and whoever is deemed to have died last is irrelevant?

Thanks...

p00hsticks

I think it may depend on the exact wording of the will. Many wills, especially those written some years ago, feature a 'survivorship clause' whereby a person only inherits if they survive the deceased by a given number of days. (I believe that changes to the IHT rules for married couples now mean that there are potential downsides to such clauses).  

So if the wills have a survivorship clause saying that the child only inherits if they survive the parent for a given number of days, then the nephews and nieces would inherit.  

If there is no survivorship clause and it is not possible to medically determine who dies first then I believe you are correct in saying that it is taken that the order of presumed death is eldest to youngest. 

Spendless

We made our will recently and this was something that our solicitor fetched up with us. He called it the Emmerdale clause (after the episode where a plane crashes on the Woolpak killing off several people at the same time). For a variety of family reasons we weren't happy with what would happen at that point if we all went at once, so put in a 'disaster clause' where our estate is divided between 5 different people, with one getting 50% and the others 12.5% each. If one of those fails their share is divided amongst the others. 

Alphatauri

I have a disaster clause in my will so my money can’t end up with my former BIL which is what could happen under laws of intestacy if a tragic accident occurred.

Malthusian

Alphatauri said:

I have a disaster clause in my will so my money can’t end up with my former BIL which is what could happen under laws of intestacy if a tragic accident occurred.

How so?
Former BIL suggests the link between them and your money under intestacy law is normally severed. 

Madeinireland101

Thanks all - As we are all going on a holiday together it seems sensible that I should add a disaster clause. As with the comment above we have certain people that we don’t wish to inherit and given our kids don’t have wills as yet it could happen.

Alphatauri

@Malthusian I would rather not go into family relationships but in a disaster scenario e.g. a car crash wiping out 2 generations, the father of the younger generation could inherit under the laws of intestacy. 

Mojisola

Madeinireland101 said:

As we are all going on a holiday together it seems sensible that I should add a disaster clause. As with the comment above we have certain people that we don’t wish to inherit and given our kids don’t have wills as yet it could happen.

And there may be people who would be line to administer your estate that you don't want to go through all your personal effects!  Make sure your will appoints alternative executors as well.

SVaz

Our disaster clause stipulates that our estate passes to my two nephews.
My Wife and I,  our Daughter and our Grandson would all have to die together for this to happen.  

I have no clue what would happen if my Grandson was to survive long enough to inherit then die as a minor.
Presumably our/his estate would go to his Father instead, who is our Daughter’s partner and also perhaps to his half brother and Sister?