How King Charles profits from the assets of dead citizens – podcast

An archaic custom allows the king’s estate to absorb the assets of people in the north of England who die without a will or a known next of kin. Maeve McClenaghan investigates

• King’s estate to transfer £100m into ethical funds after bona vacantia revelations

For most people in the UK, what happens to your assets when you die is a relatively simple process: you either specify your wishes in a will or your estate passes to your next of kin. But some people have neither: no will, no known next of kin. What happens to their assets is not so simple, and if you live in certain parts of the UK, even less so.

As the Guardian’s investigations correspondent Maeve McClenaghan tells Nosheen Iqbal, if a person dies in England and Wales with no will or next of kin, their 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 Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. For those who die within the boundary of the ancient county palatinate of Lancashire, their assets, if unclaimed, go to the king’s private estate, the Duchy of Lancaster. It’s an archaic custom known as bona vacantia.