Scottish intestacy rules explained: who inherits when there is no will

If someone dies without a will in Scotland, their estate does not simply pass to their next of kin in one step. Scots law, principally the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, divides an intestate estate in three fixed stages. First, a surviving spouse or civil partner takes prior rights: the home up to £473,000 in value, furniture and furnishings up to £29,000, and a cash sum of £50,000 if the deceased left children or other descendants, or £89,000 if not. Second, the spouse or civil partner and any children take legal rights, which are fixed fractions of the remaining moveable estate. Third, whatever is left, the free estate, passes to relatives in a strict statutory order.

This page covers Scotland only. The rules south of the border are entirely different: England and Wales give the surviving spouse a statutory legacy of £322,000 plus half of the remainder, a system Scotland does not use at all, and we explain it separately in our guide to who inherits if there is no will. If you are working out what a Scottish intestacy means for the eventual tax bill, our free IHT threshold calculator shows in two minutes whether the estate is likely to cross the £325,000 inheritance tax threshold, which applies UK-wide.

Stage one: prior rights

Prior rights belong only to a surviving spouse or civil partner. Cohabitants, however long the relationship, get nothing at this stage (more on that below). The three elements are:

Prior right	Limit	Conditions
The home	Up to £473,000	The deceased's interest in the house, but only if the survivor was ordinarily resident in it at the date of death. If the home is worth more, the survivor normally receives £473,000 in cash instead.
Furniture and furnishings	Up to £29,000	The contents of that home.
Cash sum	£50,000 or £89,000	£50,000 if the deceased left children or other descendants; £89,000 if not. Paid from the rest of the estate.

These figures have applied since February 2012, when they were last uprated. For a great many ordinary Scottish estates, prior rights swallow everything, and the surviving spouse or civil partner inherits the whole estate before stages two and three even begin. That is why the answer to "does my husband or wife get everything?" is often yes, but never guaranteed, and why the position after a spouse dies is worth checking carefully; our guide to whether you need probate when a spouse dies covers the administration side.

Stage two: legal rights

Once prior rights are satisfied, legal rights are claimed from the net moveable estate: broadly money, savings, investments, vehicles and personal possessions, but not land or buildings (which Scots law calls heritable property). The fractions are fixed:

• The surviving spouse or civil partner takes one third of the moveable estate if the deceased left children, or one half if there are none.
• The children together share one third of the moveable estate if there is a surviving spouse or civil partner, or one half if there is not. Adopted children are included, and if a child died before the deceased, that child's own children take their share.

Legal rights are a distinctive feature of Scots law with no equivalent in England and Wales, and they apply even where there is a will. In an intestacy they operate as the second layer of the three-stage waterfall.

Stage three: the free estate

Whatever remains after prior rights and legal rights is the free estate, and it passes to relatives in a fixed order. An important change took effect for deaths on or after 1 May 2024, made by the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act 2024: where the deceased left no children or other descendants, the surviving spouse or civil partner now inherits the whole free estate, ranking ahead of the deceased's parents and siblings. Before that date, a childless widow or widower could see their in-laws inherit ahead of them.

The order is now, in outline:

1. Children, with the descendants of any child who died first taking that child's share
2. The surviving spouse or civil partner, where there are no descendants (deaths on or after 1 May 2024)
3. Parents and siblings (half to each group where both exist)
4. Aunts and uncles, then grandparents, then wider relatives
5. The Crown, as ultimus haeres ("last heir"), where no relative can be traced. This is Scotland's equivalent of bona vacantia: the estate is administered by the King's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer, and genuine claimants can still come forward.

A worked example: £600,000 estate, spouse and two children

Abstract rules are hard to apply, so here is a typical case. Ailsa dies intestate in Dundee leaving a husband, Tom, and two adult children. Her estate is a house worth £300,000 (Tom lives there), contents worth £20,000, and £280,000 in savings and investments: £600,000 in total.

1. Prior rights. Tom takes the house (£300,000, under the £473,000 cap), the contents (£20,000, under the £29,000 cap) and the £50,000 cash sum (the lower figure, because Ailsa left children). Running total to Tom: £370,000. Moveable estate remaining: £230,000.
2. Legal rights. Tom takes one third of the remaining moveable estate (£76,666) and the two children share one third (£38,333 each). Remaining: £76,668.
3. Free estate. The final £76,668 goes to the children equally (£38,334 each), because children rank first.

Outcome: Tom receives about £446,666 and each child about £76,667. Notice what did not happen: Tom did not simply "get everything", and the children's share came entirely from the moveable estate and the free estate. If the house had been worth £550,000 instead, Tom's housing right would have been capped at £473,000 paid in cash, and the arithmetic would change substantially. Amounts passing to a spouse are exempt from inheritance tax, while amounts passing to children count against the £325,000 nil-rate band, so the split matters for tax too. The interaction between Scottish succession law and the UK-wide tax rules is covered in our guide to the inheritance tax threshold in Scotland.

Cohabitants: no automatic rights and a strict deadline

An unmarried partner inherits nothing automatically under Scottish intestacy rules, no matter how long the couple lived together. The only route is an application to the court under section 29 of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006, and it comes with sharp edges:

• It applies only where the deceased died intestate and the couple were cohabiting immediately before the death.
• The application currently must be made within 6 months of the death. Legislation has been passed to extend this to 12 months, but the extension was not yet in force when this article was verified, so treat 6 months as the working deadline and check the current position.
• Any award is entirely at the court's discretion and cannot exceed what a surviving spouse would have received. Many claims settle for far less, and some fail.

Six months passes quickly in bereavement, and a discretionary court claim is a poor substitute for certainty. The comparison with the position of unmarried partners south of the border, and the practical fixes, are covered in our guide to intestacy rules for unmarried partners. The blunt conclusion is the same in every part of the UK: if you are not married or in a civil partnership, only a will protects your partner.

Who is left out entirely

Beyond cohabitants, the intestacy rules ignore stepchildren who were never adopted, close friends, carers, and any charity the deceased supported. A separated (but not divorced) spouse, by contrast, keeps full prior and legal rights, which regularly produces outcomes nobody would have chosen. All of these gaps have the same solution: a valid will.

Confirmation: how an intestate Scottish estate is administered

Scotland does not use probate. The court authority to administer an estate is called confirmation, granted by the sheriff court, and the process is explained on mygov.scot and by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. Intestacy adds two extra steps that a will avoids:

1. Appointing an executor-dative. With no will there is no named executor, so someone (usually the surviving spouse, civil partner or a close relative) must petition the sheriff court to be appointed executor-dative.
2. A bond of caution. An executor-dative usually needs a bond of caution (pronounced "kay-shun"), an insurance policy guaranteeing the estate will be properly administered. It costs money and some insurers have withdrawn from the market, which can delay matters.
3. The C1 inventory and confirmation. The executor then completes form C1, a full inventory of the estate that doubles as the inheritance tax account, and applies for confirmation. Estates of £36,000 or less qualify for a simplified small estate procedure with help from sheriff clerks.

If you have just been landed with this role, our executors hub explains the duties, and the probate pillar covers the administration principles that apply across the UK, flagging Scottish differences where they arise. Surviving spouses juggling prior rights, legal rights and the paperwork will find the surviving spouses hub a gentler starting point.

How Scotland differs from England and Wales at a glance

Generic "UK intestacy" articles cause real confusion because the two systems share almost nothing. In brief: England and Wales use a statutory legacy plus a residue split, Scotland uses the three-stage prior rights, legal rights and free estate waterfall; England and Wales have no legal rights regime, Scotland has no statutory legacy; and the court process is probate in one and confirmation in the other. If your situation involves a spouse and children under the England and Wales rules, our companion guide to intestacy rules for spouses and children covers that jurisdiction; this page is the Scottish version and the two sets of rules should never be mixed.

Speak to a specialist

Scottish intestacies combine strict statutory arithmetic with court procedure, insurance requirements and UK-wide tax rules, and small facts (who was ordinarily resident in the house, whether a child predeceased, the exact value of the moveables) can move tens of thousands of pounds between family members. This guide is general information, not legal advice. If you are facing an intestate estate in Scotland, whether as a potential executor-dative, a surviving spouse or a cohabitant watching a 6-month clock, we can connect you with a vetted specialist in Scottish executries. Before that conversation, run the estate through the free IHT threshold calculator so you know whether inheritance tax is part of the picture.