I have been asked to advice on an estate of three brothers, John, George and Stan, who owned property in tenants in common. Stan has died intestate and has only surviving siblings who has survived him and inherit his estate equally. One of his brothers Kenneth have predeceased him and left all his estate to his daughter by his Will, even though he has two other children. Kenneth’s estate has already been administered and concluded 4 years earlier.
Am I correct in stating that the inheritance Kenneth’s estate will receive from Stan’s estate will be split equally between his 3 children under intestacy rules and not follow Kenneth’s Will made previously i.e. going to the one child?
Under the intestacy rules where the intestate has no surviving spouse, no issue and no parents brothers/sisters of the whole blood inherit on statutory trusts.
A child of a predeceasing brother/sister inherits that which would have otherwise been inherited by the brother/sister.
As Patrick suggests, check out the intestacy rules; AEA 1925 s46(1)(v).
As Andrew, Malcolm and Patrick have said, it’s important to distinguish between Kenneth’s estate inheriting vs Kenneth’s issue inheriting under the intestacy rules applying to Stan’s estate. This is the second scenario and Kenneth’s Will is irrelevant. It is just as if Stan had made a Will leaving a portion of his estate to Kenneth with the normal substitutionary gift eg “but if he dies before me then to such of his children as survive me and if more than one in equal shares”.