The royal family’s right to collect money from dead people has helped to enrich several monarchs over centuries.
The custom revolves around a Latin term, bona vacantia, which means “vacant goods”. It relates to people who die without a will or known heirs, which raises the question: who should inherit their assets?
If the person dies in England and Wales, the answer is that the money goes to the Treasury. There is, however, an exception for people who die in parts of England with historical links to two royal estates.
The duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are run by professional executives and make millions each year by managing and renting out farmland, hotels, offices and shops. They exist to generate supposedly “private” income for the monarch and heir to the throne.
Under the bona vacantia system, the Duchy of Cornwall can claim the assets of people who die in Cornwall intestate – meaning they have no will – if no relatives can be found.
The Duchy of Lancaster does the same when such people’s last known residence is in what was historically known as Lancashire county palatine – a medieval fiefdom consisting of land that today includes all of Lancashire and parts of Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Cumbria. The duchy also collects leftover assets owned by companies at the point they are dissolved.
The origins of these rules are obscure but appear to date from the middle ages, when both duchies came into existence. In 1265, Henry III quelled a revolt of feudal lords who wanted to reduce his powers. The king seized lands belonging to the leading rebel and gave them to his second surviving son, Edmund. These lands, which were mainly in northern England, became known as the Duchy of Lancaster.
In charters issued in 1399 and 1485, the monarch stipulated that the profits of this duchy would pass automatically to whoever was sitting on the throne – a massive flow of money to the reigning monarch.
Not without controversy, the duchies still exist in the present day and have become cash cows for the royals, who receive annual payouts. Last year, the Duchy of Lancaster paid Charles £26m. Buckingham Palace says this should be regarded as his “private” income.
At one time, the monarch was able to claim all the assets of everyone who died without an heir, because in theory all the land in England was owned by the crown. However, this power was relinquished in 1830 – with a caveat. The duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall retained the custom of collecting the assets of those dying without a will in their historical domains.
This practice was only formalised into law in 1925, when parliament passed an act on the administration of wills. A short clause in this act from nearly a century ago gave the duchies the legal authority to collect the surviving assets of dead people.
Why this was done is not known. Parliament did not debate the act when it was passed and there appear to be no surviving records relating to the decision in the National Archives, the government’s main depository for historical documents.
Since then, the duchies’ claims to bona vacantia assets have remained a little-known quirk of the UK’s antiquated constitutional system, although the custom has occasionally attracted controversy.
During the second world war, the then king, George VI, reportedly benefited from the deaths of soldiers and airmen who were killed – the income from bona vacantia rose sharply during the war years. At that time, the money collected under the system in effect went to the monarch, albeit via his duchy.
It was not until the 1980s that the duchy began to say the money from bona vacantia would not enrich the queen, but instead would be donated to charity. With minimal public oversight, it has not been possible – until now – to know whether that claim was true.
