Intestate Succession

Question 1

Intestate Succession

Answer 1

explains how property is divided if a person dies without a will (or if the will is invalidated in part in whole or does not make a total disposition).

Question 2

Per Capita at each generation

Answer 2

• To decide who gets the shares of the estate, find the first generation where there are issue living.
• Give one share for each such living issue and one share for each person in that generation who predeceased the decedent but left issue surviving.
• Combine the shares belonging to the deceased persons and distibute them equally at the next generational level.

Cousins are treated alike

Question 3

Per Capita with represention

Answer 3

• modern per stirpes
• same as per capita at each generation except instead of combining all shares and dividing them equally, simply pass each deceased person’s shares onto her issue.

Question 4

Child

Answer 4

a child for purposes of intestate succession incldues adopted children, children born out of wedlock, and half-bloods (but not stepchildren)

Question 5

Advancements

Answer 5

This is an issue when the decedent dies without a will but gave a child a gift during her lifetime. The question is: should the gift be deduced from what the child would inerhit under the laws of intestate succession?
* common law
* majority law
* ademption by satisfaction

Question 6

Common law

Answer 6

• A lifetime transfer to an heir was presumptively treated as a down payment on the heir’s intestate share and thus is taken into account when computing the heir’s intestate share. At common law, this only applied to a gift to a child (not, say, a gift to a sibling), but most states have broadend it to include any heir

Question 7

Majority law

Answer 7

• most states today say that a lifetime transfer is presumed to be a gift and is ignored in computing the heir’s intestate share unless there is evidence to show that the decenedent intended the gift to be an advancement.

Question 8

Ademption by satisfaction

Answer 8

This doctrine applies when there is a will. UPC states that a lifetime gift is not a prepayment unless (1) the will says so, (2) the testator declares in a contemporaneous writing that the gift is to be deducted from the will, (3) or the devisee acknlowdges in writing that the gift is in satisfaction of the bequest.