Is it normal to have a 'thirty days' clause in a will?

Wyndham

Without going into too much detail, married couple and one of them has died. There is a clause in the will which states:

'If my [Spouse] survives me by thirty days I give the whole of my estate to [them]".

I'm curious about the 30 days? Is that standard? Why not just give it all straight away? 

theoretica

It is fairly common - it is supposed to make things simpler if a couple are in a car crash together or something - so there doesn't need to be a debate over who died just before the other.

Wyndham

theoretica said:

It is fairly common - it is supposed to make things simpler if a couple are in a car crash together or something - so there doesn't need to be a debate over who died just before the other.

Interesting - I'd understood that in that situation (and if it was impossible to be sure who had died first) then the elder of the couple would be defined as dying first. I heard that some years ago though, and it may have changed!

AP3

It is common. When I drafted the wills for my wife and I, I included it.

The idea is to prevent going through probate twice in quick succession, which involves costs to the estate,

Wyndham

AP3 said:

It is common. When I drafted the wills for my wife and I, I included it.

The idea is to prevent going through probate twice in quick succession, which involves costs to the estate,

That makes sense - thank you. I hadn't thought of that!

poseidon1

Wyndham said:

Without going into too much detail, married couple and one of them has died. There is a clause in the will which states:

'If my [Spouse] survives me by thirty days I give the whole of my estate to [them]".

I'm curious about the 30 days? Is that standard? Why not just give it all straight away? 

Actually it should not be common for the 30 day survival period to apply to the spouse, and maybe counter productive to do so.

Simple reason is one would not want to risk losing the benefit of the blanket spouse exemption and/or the transferable nil rate bands  in the event the spouse failed to survive the 30 day period (such as in a car/plane catastrophe). 

Think about it, 2nd spouse dies 10 days after, but first spouse owns the bulk of the estate  which  bypasses second spouse's estate,  thereby wasting their NRB and RNRB. 

The article link below explains - 

https://allanjanes.com/-Survivorship-Provisions-30-Days-to-Benefit

Also as explained in the article , such a clause applied to the spouse could run contrary to the commorienties rule whereby  the oldest of the two spouses is deemed to have died first as a result of a joint fatality.

Those who have applied the clause  to spouses in their wills, may wish to reconsider the validity and potential IHT disadvantage of doing so in light of the above.

 There are good reasons for the clause in other situations but not as between spouses.