I’m dealing with an estate where the deceased died in testate, he had no wife, no children, no brothers or sisters, no nieces or nephews, parents are deceased and so are grandparents. However, he did have aunts and uncles who are now deceased and does have cousins and first cousins once removed.
My query is if aunt A died before deceased in question and had 2 children, but one of those children died before deceased too, does his share fail and get put back into the residue to then be divided equally between the remaining, surviving cousins OR does this pass to the sibling of the deceased cousin?
The share that would have been due to the predeceased cousin will follow the bloodline down and be shared equally between any children they may have had.
If you would like any assistance in establishing the full extent of the extended family who are entitled to inherit, then please feel free to contact us.
Distribution in E&W to the class of kin of uncles and aunts and, where predeceased, their issue, is per capita across all the uncles and aunts on both the paternal and maternal sides of the family; and per stirpes to their issue.
So here, where the aunt predeceased leaving two children, and one (a first cousin) has died, I would comment that:
If that predeceased first cousin left no surviving issue, then the share that would have passed to him passes back to the surviving first cousin, so that the survivor gets the entirety of the aunt’s share.
But if the predeceased first cousin died leaving surviving issue, then his share passes to his surviving issue in proportions that depend on their relationship (e.g. whether the issue are his children or grandchildren).