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English law:

If your domicile is England and Wales you can dispose by will of anything in England and Wales and any moveable property which you have abroad and you can dispose of it to whom you wish and to the exclusion of your family unless

you have restricted yourself by contract, e.g. by entering into an agreement to create and not revoke mutual wills; or
it is something which does not pass to your personal representative on your death, e.g. jointly owned property held as joint tenants; or
it is a contract in which your personality is an essential element, e.g. a contract to paint a portrait or to write a book; or
it is property you do not own (e.g. assurance policies taken out by you on trust for another) and over which you have not been given a power of appointment; or
the property has been 'nominated' and the nomination has not been revoked; or
it is property the disposal of which is restricted by its nature, e.g. some rights in immoveable property such as a personal licence or permission to use or cross the land of another, or shares in some small companies; or
it is your body; or
statute law restricts your right to dispose of it in the way you wish.

(Completely OT, when did people start spelling the verb "lose" [past tense: I have lost my donkey; present tense: did you lose your donkey?] as "loose" [adj: "Yr trousers are so loose, they're hanging below your bum"  "It's the fashion, man.  Get hip grandad."  "You'd find it easier to walk and run if that's where your troursers were.  Around your hips, I mean."  "Man, you're not getting much are ya?"  etc...]  Did someone change the rules?  Is it an american spelling?  Can I publicly state that the verb which means "to misplace an object or other item so that you can't find it again" is To lose (and not toulouse)  (or even too loose)

Re: my question about signing deeds over to the children:

One trap is to think that IHT can be avoided by passing over the deeds of your house to your children but continuing to live there. Regardless of the number of years since the gesture, unless you have paid a full commercial rent, it will be regarded as a "gift with reservation" and part of the estate.

I can't find any laws stating that you can't bequeath your property to whomever you wish.  The "Make A Will" sites all mention that if you don't write a will, the blood-line rules follow, but they don't say that they still (at least in part?) over-ride the contents of the will.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Mar 26th, 2007 at 10:15:21 AM EST
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