Successor to hereditary title, office or like, in case of the
heritageHeritage refers to something which is inherited from one's ancestors. It has several different senses, including:* Natural heritage, a nation's fauna and flora, natural resources, and landscape...
being indivisible, goes to one person at a time. There are also other sorts of
order of successionAn order of succession is a formula or algorithm that determines who inherits an office upon the death, resignation, or removal of its current occupant.-Monarchies and nobility:...
than hereditary succession (such as line of non-hereditary succession to democratic state offices).
The hereditary line of succession may be limited to
heirs of the bodyHeirs of the body is the term for the English legal principle that certain types of property pass to a descendant of the grantee according to a fixed order of kinship...
, or may pass also to collateral lines, in case of extinction of heirs of the body, depending on the succession rules.
Successor to hereditary title, office or like, in case of the
heritageHeritage refers to something which is inherited from one's ancestors. It has several different senses, including:* Natural heritage, a nation's fauna and flora, natural resources, and landscape...
being indivisible, goes to one person at a time. There are also other sorts of
order of successionAn order of succession is a formula or algorithm that determines who inherits an office upon the death, resignation, or removal of its current occupant.-Monarchies and nobility:...
than hereditary succession (such as line of non-hereditary succession to democratic state offices).
The hereditary line of succession may be limited to
heirs of the bodyHeirs of the body is the term for the English legal principle that certain types of property pass to a descendant of the grantee according to a fixed order of kinship...
, or may pass also to collateral lines, in case of extinction of heirs of the body, depending on the succession rules. These concepts are in use in English inheritance law.
Main concepts for hereditary succession are usually either
heir male or
heir general - see further
primogeniturePrimogeniture is the common law right of the first-born son to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings. It is the tradition brought by the Normans to England in 1066. According to the Norman tradition, the first-born son inherited the entirety of a parent's wealth, estate,...
(agnatic, cognatic, and also equal).
Certain types of
propertyProperty is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of persons. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property has the right to consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transfer, exchange or destroy his or her property, and/or to exclude others from...
pass to a descendant or relative of the original holder or grantee according to a fixed order of
kinshipKinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. In anthropology the kinship system includes people related both by descent and marriage, while usage in biology includes descent and mating...
. Upon the death of the grantee, a designated
inheritanceInheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
such as a
peerageThe Peerage is a system of titles in the United Kingdom, which represents the upper ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system. The term is used both collectively to refer to the entire body of titles, and individually to refer to a specific title...
, or a
monarchyThe person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch. It was a common form of government in the world during the ancient and medieval times. A Monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or...
, passes automatically to that living,
legitimateAt common law, legitimacy is the status of a child who is born to parents who are legally married to one another, or who is born shortly after the parents' marriage ends through divorce...
,
naturalNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
relative of the grantee who is most senior in descent, regardless of the relative age; and thereafter continues to pass to subsequent successors of the grantee, according to the same formula, upon the death of each subsequent heir.
Each person who inherits according to this formula is considered an heir at law of the grantee. Since the inheritance may not pass to someone who is not a natural, lawful descendant or relative of the grantee.
Collateral
kin-Places:* Kin, Okinawa, a town in Okinawa, Japan* A nickname for Kinshasa* Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica -People:* Kin, a boy's name* kiN, a Swedish female artist situated in Stockholm....
, who share some or all of the grantee's ancestry, but do not directly descend from the grantee, may inherit if there is no limitation to heirs of the body.
There are other kinds of formulae for inheritance, if the heritage can be divided: heirs portioners and
partible inheritancePartible inheritance is a general term applied to systems of inheritance in which property may be apportioned among heirs. It contrasts in particular with primogeniture, which requires that the whole inheritance passes to the eldest son, and with agnatic seniority where the succession passes to...
.