In Cornwall, If You Don’t Have a Will, Your Estate Goes To Prince Charles

In Cornwall, a constitutional law dating back to medieval times dictates that the Prince of Wales gets the estates of people who die without a will. Over the past six years, Prince Charles has earned over one million pounds from people who died without a will.

The chief executive of the campaign group Republic says that Prince Charles does not have a right ot hat money and wants to abolish this law, stating, “‘anywhere else in the country that money goes into the public purse but in Cornwall, it goes into his pocket. It needs to stop.'”

Notably, Charles donates all of the money he receives from these estates to charity.  Furthermore, he voluntarily pays income tax at the highest rate, netting the Inland Revenue around 4.5 million pounds last year. 

See Anthony Bond, Revealed: How Prince Charles Receives  £1m From the Estates of Subjects Who Die WIthout Wills Thanks To a Medieval Law, MailOnline, Oct. 3, 2012. 

Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this to my attention.