Distribution, Statute Of - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition distribution-statute-of

Definition :

Distribution, Statute of (22 & 23 Car. 2, c. 10), now only applied to intestacies prior to 1926, repealed by (English) Administration of Estates Act, 1925 (see WIDOW), explained by the Statute of Frauds, 29 Car. 2, c. 3, enacts that the surplusage of intestates' personal estate (except of femes covert, the administration and enjoyment of whose estates belonged, at Common Law, to their husbands-but see MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY) shall, after the expiration of one year from the death of the intestate, be distributed in the following manner: one-third shall go to the widow of the intestate, and the residue in equal proportions to his children, or, if dead, to their representatives, that is, their lineal descendants; if there be no children or legal representative subsisting ,then a moiety shall go to the widow, and a moiety to the next of kindred in equal degree, and their representatives; if no widow, the whole shall go to the children; if neither widow nor children, the whole shall be distributed amongst the next-of-kin, in equal degree, and their representatives, but no representatives are admitted among collaterals farther than the children of the intestate's brothers and sisters. The following relations are considered as of the same degree of kindered: (1) parents and children; (2) grandfather, grandson, and brother; (3) great-grandfather, great-grandson, uncle, and nephew; (4) great-great-grandfather, great-great-grandson, great-uncle, great-nephew and first-cousin. The half blood take equally with the whole blood in the same degree.

The widow of an intestate dying without issue before 1926 was, in amendment of the words italicized above, entitled, by the (English) Intestates Estates Act, 1890 (see that title), to at least 500 out of the real and personal assets of the intestate, or if such assets did not amount to 500, then to the whole of his estate, as against the next-of-kin.