Bill to tidy up estate disputes

The Government is moving to confirm rules preventing killers inheriting from their victims.

Inheritance laws already have well-settled rules which prevent killers benefiting from their crime.

The Succession (Homicide) Bill would clarify those rules, put them into legislation and reduce the number and scope of disputes which needed to be resolved by the court, Associate Justice Minister Clayton Cosgrove said.

The bill stems from a 1997 Law Commission report, which said legislation would remove any doubts about whether judge-made rules on inheritance could be overridden by constitutional laws.

In the decade before the report's release, about 50 estates were disputed in court, and the commission said a new law would make executors' and trustees' jobs much easier.

Two tricky areas addressed by the bill are mercy-killings and whether battered spouses who kill their abusers can be disinherited.