Editing Intestacy (section)

==History and the common law==
Intestacy has a limited application in those jurisdictions that follow [[civil law (legal system)|civil law]] or [[Roman law]] because the concept of a will is itself less important; the doctrine of [[forced heirship]] automatically gives a deceased person's [[next-of-kin]] title to a large part (forced estate) of the estate's property [[by operation of law]], beyond the power of the deceased person to defeat or exceed by testamentary gift. A forced share (or [[legitime]]) can often only be decreased on account of some very specific misconduct by the forced [[heir]]. In matters of cross-border inheritance, the "laws of succession" is the commonplace term covering testate and intestate estates in common law jurisdictions together with forced heirship rules typically applying in civil law and [[Sharia law]] jurisdictions.
After the [[Statute of Wills]] 1540, Englishmen (and unmarried or widowed women) could dispose of their lands and [[real property]] by a ''will''. Their [[personal property]] could formerly be disposed of by a ''testament'', hence the hallowed legal [[merism]] ''last will and testament''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=NEI Project: Wills and Testaments |url=http://familyrecords.dur.ac.uk/nei/NEI_will2.htm#:~:text=However,%20the%20Statute%20of%20Wills,to%20the%20heir%20at%20law). |access-date=25 October 2023 |website=familyrecords.dur.ac.uk}}</ref>

Common law sharply distinguished between [[real property]] and [[Personal property|chattel]]s. Real property for which no disposition had been made by will passed by the law of [[kinship and descent]]; chattel property for which no disposition had been made by testament was [[escheat]] to [[the Crown]], or given to the Church for charitable purposes. This law became obsolete as England moved from being a [[feudal]] to a [[mercantile]] society, and chattels more valuable than land were being accumulated by townspeople.