The Forfeiture Rule and the Law of Succession ... - Law Commission

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
1.14 There is strong support for our proposals to introduce a “deemed predecease”
rule. For reasons set out in Part 3 we did not find the arguments of the dissenting
minority persuasive. The more difficult question was to what permutations of facts
it should extend. In particular, we were persuaded by the argument that it was
illogical to exclude the disclaimer of interests under wills while including both the
forfeiture of interests under wills and the disclaimer of interests under intestacy.
1.15 We therefore recommend the following. 7
(1) Where a child of an intestate is disqualified through having killed the
intestate, the property should be distributed as if the child had died
immediately before the intestate (the “deemed predecease” rule). That is
to say, the killer’s children should be allowed to inherit.
(2) A similar rule should apply when the deceased has been killed by a
spouse or other relative.
1.16 We recommend that the same solution should also apply, with the necessary
modifications, to the cases where:
(1) the deceased has died intestate, and the potential heir has disclaimed
any interest in the estate; 8
(2) the deceased has died intestate, leaving a minor potential heir who later
dies leaving issue without having attained majority or married; 9
(3) the deceased has made a will, and the potential heir (whether a relative
or not) is excluded because he or she has killed the deceased; 10 or
(4) the deceased has made a will, and the potential heir (whether a relative
or not) has disclaimed any interest in the estate. 11
We do not consider that this solution should extend to other cases, such as
where:
(5) the deceased has made a will, and the potential heir is excluded because
he or she is a witness to the will; 12
7 Para 3.33 below.
8 Para 4.28 below.
9 This problem is explained in full in paras 4.30 to 4.34 below. Briefly, the surviving issue in
this case are unfairly excluded because they fall between two stools. They are unable to
inherit directly from the intestate, because their parent was still alive when the intestate
died. On the other hand, they are unable to inherit via their parent, because the parent
never attained a vested interest.
10 Para 4.11 below.
11 Para 4.28 below.
12 Para 4.29 below.
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