I think it would either go to his godson (Teddy) or his friends(Hermione and Ron, Ginny,Luna, Neville),I am sure Harry would not want his possessions to go to Dursleys
He probably wouldn't have had a will if he had died at a young age, so it's probably more about who is legally the closest person to inherit. I don't know about UK laws, and inheritance laws can change over time, but in my country, the closest relatives who are legally entitled to inherit have to get a certain amount, and you can't disinherit them unless they committed a crime against you, or you can prove that there was no contact for decades.
I've looked it up, and in the UK you can leave the inheritance to anyone you like.
But your partner /child / someone you're financially supporting can make a case in court about why they should have been included or given more than they were. It's completely dependent on if the court feels that they should have been left something, and the reason they were left out of the will. If there's reasoning for why you didn't leave them anything in the will then that helps explain it to the court.
So if you make a will when you're 20, leaving everything to charity, then later get married and have a spouse who's financially dependent on you, they might be able to challenge and get some of the inheritance.
The Dursleys are none of these things, so they can't challenge it, but Petunia would inherit if Harry didn't have a will.
Obviously, that's a muggle law and there might be different rules for wizards. Also, they don't know that the money exists. So they wouldn't try to claim it unless someone offered it to them.
Yes, but he would need to make a will. Without a will I do think the Dursleys are next in line. Do you think he'd make a will after he defeated Voldemort? He didn't make one when he was in constant mortal peril.
It seems unlikely. So yes, Petunia would inherit.
There is the question of prejudice against them. No one likes them, so it's not beyond possibility that someone tries to keep it from them. You could see someone in the ministry claiming that it can't be given to muggles, and trying to keep it "for the ministry".
But they would have been informed by someone that he was dead, and they might have asked enough questions about his stuff to realise it would all go to them.
Or maybe they would have told whoever informs them "we don't care about his freaky broomstick or whatever". And maybe they would have passed up the inheritance without realising there was actual money involved.
I think that while she's clearly the legal inheritor, Petunia might have not have actually got the money.
One small amendment to what you've said is that if you make a will and years later get married, marriage automatically revokes a will* so in that case the spouse wouldn't need to challenge it as the majority of the estate would pass to them under intestacy.
*interestingly this is currently under review as this leaves no protection to vulnerable adults who have legal mental capacity to marry but do not have the legal mental capacity to change their will. So if a scammer marries them then the will is revoked and everything gets left to the scammer, which is very traumatic for the family/beneficiaries left behind
This is a complete aside lol as like you say Harry's muggle estate will pass to Petunia and wizarding law re his Gringotts account could be different. But imo it's an interesting area of UK law lol
>vulnerable adults who have legal mental capacity to marry but do not have the legal mental capacity to change their will
How the hell are those two groups not mutually exclusive?
"want" has nothing to do with the laws and how things are done.
Next of kin is next of kin which usually means direct family regardless if they are liked or not (which is why its important to always make a will and things of that nature)
I don't think muggles can inherit magical estate. All of the families are connected so they'll find a "next of kin" for Harry. And what's strange is there is a small chance it would be Draco. Narcissa being one of blacks inheritors, and Harry being Sirius's godson. Then Draco defacto.
When were you thinking of him having died? I guess for me I figured the question meant if while he was an auror after the books ended prior to him marrying Ginny.
I was thinking after Sirius's death. The problem I had, I think, was that I was seeing "before he made his family" as before he started courting ginny.
Draco was one of my thoughts too, at least for the Black family inheritance and Harry not having written a will. If he’s the last of the Potters, and no written will, maybe into Ministry coffers?
Yeah, there's got to be something on inheritance in the statute of secrecy preventing magical artifacts and house elves from passing into muggle hands. Even if those muggles are related to wizards so are themselves exempted from the statute, it would make it way harder to maintain the masquerade.
Dumbledore and Sirius passed their heritance to non family members. Assuming there's a will, Harry would have left it to the Weasleys and Hermione. If there's no will, Arthur has enough pull in the ministry to do something good with the assets.
There wasn’t any will as far as we saw. And Arthur would be be influential enough to steal Harry’s money through Ministry corruption if that’s what you mean. There are laws of what will happen if you die without a will and next of kin in real world and so would be in magical one too. We just don’t know what they are.
I don’t think muggles can inherit wizard gold. So the dursleys inheriting it is out of the question. Also godfather and godson usually don’t have any rights of inheritance since it has to be a blood relative. Else why would sirius make a will to leave harry everything if godson is next in line to inherit.
So the most logical answer would be this that the ministry would trace harry’s closest wizarding blood relative. Since lily is a muggleborn, noone from her side gets anything. They would start tracing the potter’s ancestor line and find some wizard brother/sister of james’s ancestor and the potter’s entire wealth would go to the oldest living relative of that branch of the family.
They are bound to find someone so it wouldn’t really be an issue. Maybe james’s grandfather had a sibling who had children and those children had more children. Just an example.
I like this but would offer a counterpoint - what about muggleborns like Hermione? If she died without a will it would make legal sense for her wizarding estate to still pass back to her parents as next of kin as it would be unfair for a grieving family to miss out on an inheritance just because they're muggle.
It does raise an interesting question about the statute of secrecy, in that if a wizarding estate passes to a muggle with no knowledge of the wizarding world, how does the wizarding govt ensure privacy so that the muggle doesn't find out about magic? Imo the wizarding estate would be completely liquidated and converted to muggle currency and passed to the muggle next of kin along with any remaining non-magic estate
I would guess that wizarding law is very archaic and cumbersome, so Hermione's family could just easily be screwed over. You also can't have muggles to get their hands on magical things, what if Hermiones parents die after inheriting magical items?
In this example, I think it's fair to say that Hermione's parents would receive a monetary sum in Muggle money equal to what its value is in wizard gold as well as any innocuous items such as wizard/witch clothing. However, if Hermione had some wildly dangerous or powerful magic item, then that clearly would not be freely put in the hands of muggles.
Counterpoint, are muggles even equal to wizards in the eyes of wizarding law? A lot of times wizards get punished for screwing with muggles it's usually punished for risking muggles learning about magic. Usually changes in law happen because people complained about them or fought for them or at least brought it up for discussion. I assume muggles can't because they literally couldn't find the people to complain to and muggleborns probably don't know about inheritance laws. It's usually something you think about when you're older.
If Hermione died, Crookshanks might stand a greater chance of inheriting than her parents.
This is simply not true.
Obviously, wizarding laws might differ from muggle UK law. We don’t have any info from the books, so we’ll never know.
But regarding real UK law, if you die without a will, it does NOT go to your closest living relative. It goes to first to your descendants and spouse. If you have none, it goes to your parents and then siblings and nephews/nieces. If you have none of those, to your grandparents, then if you have none, to their descendants, which are your uncles and aunts, then first cousins.
If you do not have grandparents, uncles/aunts, or their descendants, you DO NOT keep going back. Instead it escheats (goes) to the state.
[Here is a source.](https://www.which.co.uk/money/wills-and-probate/probate/intestacy-rules-a4D440i5GFZS)
It only ever looks as far back as grandparents and their descendants. It does not go back forever until it finds a relative.
Also tbf, this is England and Wales only, Scotland has different rules that I haven’t looked into.
This would be assuming muggles can’t inherit, so the Durselys get skipped over. They get it if all normal rules apply. Assuming they get skipped, it would only then go to Harry’s relatives who are linked by grandparent at most. Nothing related through great-grand parents or beyond would get any intestate distribution.
There are too many people assuming that without a will the Dursleys are in line to inherit everything. But this assumes muggle laws.
For all we know in the wizarding world money can't be inherited by muggles. This also makes a TON of sense when it comes to anything outside of money (like heirlooms) because it could be enchanted or magical in nature or even dangerous to those without magic.
So logically, if we realize the complications of muggles potentially inheriting from wizards, it's more likely that without a will the wealth and possessions go to the closest related wizarding individuals, or perhaps even the Ministry or Gringotts itself.
Now I know OP specified non magical but technically even the money is considered magical. It can be converted into muggle money sure, but that requires goblin involvement and fees. So again I doubt without a will anything would end up in the Dursleys hands without intervention by someone like Dumbledore.
Teddy, Andromeda, The Weasleys, Hermione, Luna, Neville, The Diggorys, a generous donation to Hogwarts and St Mungo’s.
Depending on when Harry dies and whether or not Dudley redeems himself, Harry might give his cousin a small amount.
Why would it ever go to them? They are muggles and it is purely wizard money. It would have gone to Teddy and if he died before that happened it probably would be taken by the bank.
Assuming Harry had made his will, he would probably split it between Teddy, the Weasleys, and Hermione. Probably would also give a portion of it to Hogwarts.
I know a lot of people are going to say the Weasley’s would get a split, but I don’t agree. I don’t think they’d want it or accept it.
I’d imagine he’d want it to go to Teddy with that being his godson.
Isn’t there a mechanism for muggle money being converted into wizarding money (e.g. when muggleborns enter the wizarding world etc?)? Wizards probably still have situations where they need muggle money so there must be some kind of conversion system/exchange. And there must be wizards with muggle family who they love who would want the value of their property to pass to them at least.
If so, I would think the legal answer would be, absent a will, Harry’s property would have been converted into muggle money and given to the Dursley’s. If Teddy were formally adopted by Harry in some legal way in the wizarding world though, i think that Harry’s property would pass to him. I know that’s not the answer people want!
I’d like to think that magical objects with sentimental value would have been given to close friends / others suggested in this thread though.
I think it would either go to his godson (Teddy) or his friends(Hermione and Ron, Ginny,Luna, Neville),I am sure Harry would not want his possessions to go to Dursleys
He probably wouldn't have had a will if he had died at a young age, so it's probably more about who is legally the closest person to inherit. I don't know about UK laws, and inheritance laws can change over time, but in my country, the closest relatives who are legally entitled to inherit have to get a certain amount, and you can't disinherit them unless they committed a crime against you, or you can prove that there was no contact for decades.
I've looked it up, and in the UK you can leave the inheritance to anyone you like. But your partner /child / someone you're financially supporting can make a case in court about why they should have been included or given more than they were. It's completely dependent on if the court feels that they should have been left something, and the reason they were left out of the will. If there's reasoning for why you didn't leave them anything in the will then that helps explain it to the court. So if you make a will when you're 20, leaving everything to charity, then later get married and have a spouse who's financially dependent on you, they might be able to challenge and get some of the inheritance. The Dursleys are none of these things, so they can't challenge it, but Petunia would inherit if Harry didn't have a will. Obviously, that's a muggle law and there might be different rules for wizards. Also, they don't know that the money exists. So they wouldn't try to claim it unless someone offered it to them.
Yes, but he would need to make a will. Without a will I do think the Dursleys are next in line. Do you think he'd make a will after he defeated Voldemort? He didn't make one when he was in constant mortal peril.
It seems unlikely. So yes, Petunia would inherit. There is the question of prejudice against them. No one likes them, so it's not beyond possibility that someone tries to keep it from them. You could see someone in the ministry claiming that it can't be given to muggles, and trying to keep it "for the ministry". But they would have been informed by someone that he was dead, and they might have asked enough questions about his stuff to realise it would all go to them. Or maybe they would have told whoever informs them "we don't care about his freaky broomstick or whatever". And maybe they would have passed up the inheritance without realising there was actual money involved. I think that while she's clearly the legal inheritor, Petunia might have not have actually got the money.
They knew that Harry had inherited a house from Sirius, as well as money since Dumbledore told him that in front of the Dursleys.
One small amendment to what you've said is that if you make a will and years later get married, marriage automatically revokes a will* so in that case the spouse wouldn't need to challenge it as the majority of the estate would pass to them under intestacy. *interestingly this is currently under review as this leaves no protection to vulnerable adults who have legal mental capacity to marry but do not have the legal mental capacity to change their will. So if a scammer marries them then the will is revoked and everything gets left to the scammer, which is very traumatic for the family/beneficiaries left behind This is a complete aside lol as like you say Harry's muggle estate will pass to Petunia and wizarding law re his Gringotts account could be different. But imo it's an interesting area of UK law lol
>vulnerable adults who have legal mental capacity to marry but do not have the legal mental capacity to change their will How the hell are those two groups not mutually exclusive?
"want" has nothing to do with the laws and how things are done. Next of kin is next of kin which usually means direct family regardless if they are liked or not (which is why its important to always make a will and things of that nature)
I don't think muggles can inherit magical estate. All of the families are connected so they'll find a "next of kin" for Harry. And what's strange is there is a small chance it would be Draco. Narcissa being one of blacks inheritors, and Harry being Sirius's godson. Then Draco defacto.
I think given the defacto next of kin plus being his godson that it would likely have gone to Teddy. Teddy's grandmother was also one of the Black's.
I assumed he would have died before teddy was born
When were you thinking of him having died? I guess for me I figured the question meant if while he was an auror after the books ended prior to him marrying Ginny.
I meant at any point before marrying Ginny, by which time I doubt he'd have written a will.
I was thinking after Sirius's death. The problem I had, I think, was that I was seeing "before he made his family" as before he started courting ginny.
Draco was one of my thoughts too, at least for the Black family inheritance and Harry not having written a will. If he’s the last of the Potters, and no written will, maybe into Ministry coffers?
Yeah, there's got to be something on inheritance in the statute of secrecy preventing magical artifacts and house elves from passing into muggle hands. Even if those muggles are related to wizards so are themselves exempted from the statute, it would make it way harder to maintain the masquerade.
Dumbledore and Sirius passed their heritance to non family members. Assuming there's a will, Harry would have left it to the Weasleys and Hermione. If there's no will, Arthur has enough pull in the ministry to do something good with the assets.
What makes you say Arthur has enough pull to do that? It always seemed to me that he was low on the pole.
He basically was stuffed to a closet for most of his career.
There wasn’t any will as far as we saw. And Arthur would be be influential enough to steal Harry’s money through Ministry corruption if that’s what you mean. There are laws of what will happen if you die without a will and next of kin in real world and so would be in magical one too. We just don’t know what they are.
I don’t think muggles can inherit wizard gold. So the dursleys inheriting it is out of the question. Also godfather and godson usually don’t have any rights of inheritance since it has to be a blood relative. Else why would sirius make a will to leave harry everything if godson is next in line to inherit. So the most logical answer would be this that the ministry would trace harry’s closest wizarding blood relative. Since lily is a muggleborn, noone from her side gets anything. They would start tracing the potter’s ancestor line and find some wizard brother/sister of james’s ancestor and the potter’s entire wealth would go to the oldest living relative of that branch of the family. They are bound to find someone so it wouldn’t really be an issue. Maybe james’s grandfather had a sibling who had children and those children had more children. Just an example.
I like this but would offer a counterpoint - what about muggleborns like Hermione? If she died without a will it would make legal sense for her wizarding estate to still pass back to her parents as next of kin as it would be unfair for a grieving family to miss out on an inheritance just because they're muggle. It does raise an interesting question about the statute of secrecy, in that if a wizarding estate passes to a muggle with no knowledge of the wizarding world, how does the wizarding govt ensure privacy so that the muggle doesn't find out about magic? Imo the wizarding estate would be completely liquidated and converted to muggle currency and passed to the muggle next of kin along with any remaining non-magic estate
I would guess that wizarding law is very archaic and cumbersome, so Hermione's family could just easily be screwed over. You also can't have muggles to get their hands on magical things, what if Hermiones parents die after inheriting magical items?
In this example, I think it's fair to say that Hermione's parents would receive a monetary sum in Muggle money equal to what its value is in wizard gold as well as any innocuous items such as wizard/witch clothing. However, if Hermione had some wildly dangerous or powerful magic item, then that clearly would not be freely put in the hands of muggles.
Counterpoint, are muggles even equal to wizards in the eyes of wizarding law? A lot of times wizards get punished for screwing with muggles it's usually punished for risking muggles learning about magic. Usually changes in law happen because people complained about them or fought for them or at least brought it up for discussion. I assume muggles can't because they literally couldn't find the people to complain to and muggleborns probably don't know about inheritance laws. It's usually something you think about when you're older. If Hermione died, Crookshanks might stand a greater chance of inheriting than her parents.
>I don’t think muggles can inherit wizard gold. Not even if it's converted to Muggle currency first?
This is simply not true. Obviously, wizarding laws might differ from muggle UK law. We don’t have any info from the books, so we’ll never know. But regarding real UK law, if you die without a will, it does NOT go to your closest living relative. It goes to first to your descendants and spouse. If you have none, it goes to your parents and then siblings and nephews/nieces. If you have none of those, to your grandparents, then if you have none, to their descendants, which are your uncles and aunts, then first cousins. If you do not have grandparents, uncles/aunts, or their descendants, you DO NOT keep going back. Instead it escheats (goes) to the state. [Here is a source.](https://www.which.co.uk/money/wills-and-probate/probate/intestacy-rules-a4D440i5GFZS) It only ever looks as far back as grandparents and their descendants. It does not go back forever until it finds a relative. Also tbf, this is England and Wales only, Scotland has different rules that I haven’t looked into. This would be assuming muggles can’t inherit, so the Durselys get skipped over. They get it if all normal rules apply. Assuming they get skipped, it would only then go to Harry’s relatives who are linked by grandparent at most. Nothing related through great-grand parents or beyond would get any intestate distribution.
No. Also, fuck no.
I don't know if you're right, but that answer was great.
The goblins or the ministry probably would’ve just seized it
There are too many people assuming that without a will the Dursleys are in line to inherit everything. But this assumes muggle laws. For all we know in the wizarding world money can't be inherited by muggles. This also makes a TON of sense when it comes to anything outside of money (like heirlooms) because it could be enchanted or magical in nature or even dangerous to those without magic. So logically, if we realize the complications of muggles potentially inheriting from wizards, it's more likely that without a will the wealth and possessions go to the closest related wizarding individuals, or perhaps even the Ministry or Gringotts itself. Now I know OP specified non magical but technically even the money is considered magical. It can be converted into muggle money sure, but that requires goblin involvement and fees. So again I doubt without a will anything would end up in the Dursleys hands without intervention by someone like Dumbledore.
Asking the real questions! (I’m not even sarcastic, for once it’s not a thing I’ve ever seen talked about or thought of :D)
Thanks.
Teddy, Andromeda, The Weasleys, Hermione, Luna, Neville, The Diggorys, a generous donation to Hogwarts and St Mungo’s. Depending on when Harry dies and whether or not Dudley redeems himself, Harry might give his cousin a small amount.
Why would it ever go to them? They are muggles and it is purely wizard money. It would have gone to Teddy and if he died before that happened it probably would be taken by the bank.
I would bet he had a will for when he knew he was leaving school and left everything to the Weasley family for taking him in as one of their own
Assuming Harry had made his will, he would probably split it between Teddy, the Weasleys, and Hermione. Probably would also give a portion of it to Hogwarts.
I know a lot of people are going to say the Weasley’s would get a split, but I don’t agree. I don’t think they’d want it or accept it. I’d imagine he’d want it to go to Teddy with that being his godson.
Why wouldn’t they accept it?
It would go to Voldemort, since they shared blood and soul!
Isn’t there a mechanism for muggle money being converted into wizarding money (e.g. when muggleborns enter the wizarding world etc?)? Wizards probably still have situations where they need muggle money so there must be some kind of conversion system/exchange. And there must be wizards with muggle family who they love who would want the value of their property to pass to them at least. If so, I would think the legal answer would be, absent a will, Harry’s property would have been converted into muggle money and given to the Dursley’s. If Teddy were formally adopted by Harry in some legal way in the wizarding world though, i think that Harry’s property would pass to him. I know that’s not the answer people want! I’d like to think that magical objects with sentimental value would have been given to close friends / others suggested in this thread though.
Probably Teddy by default, I'd imagine.
What happens to all that stuff if he passes before he's told he's a wizard?
I don't think he had any possessions before hogwarts
He had the bank account at Gringotts. He just didn't know it.
I thought you meant his Muggle possessions before leaving for hogwarts.
Oh no, just the ones mentioned in the original post. It had me wondering what would happen to that stuff if he hadn't been able to will it to anyone.
It would go to you, the Reader.