When I was a kid I loved the song “I’m my own grandpa” from the Muppets. For those of you unlucky enough not to have grown up with such a lyrical masterpiece, the song tells the tale of someone who, as a result of his father marrying his wife’s daughter from a previous relationship, becomes his own grandfather. It is a masterpiece up there with the likes of any of Beethoven’s symphonies.
The song recently came flooding back into my memory when a question was posed to me regarding the inheritance rights of first cousins on an intestacy who, as a result of a quirk in the marriage patterns of their relatives, were first cousins to the deceased both on their maternal and paternal sides. The question which followed is, if you are a first cousin of an individual on both sides of the family, does that mean that you are entitled to double the inheritance in circumstances in which the estate is to be distributed to the first cousins on an intestacy?
The “double cousining”, if it can be called that, occurred as a result of one of the deceased’s father’s brothers marrying one of the deceased’s mother’s sisters. The children born to such a couple are first cousins of the deceased both on their maternal and paternal sides.
The issue of whether a “double cousin” receives twice the inheritance on an intestacy to those cousins unlucky enough to have only been related to the deceased once was dealt with by the court in Re Adams, (1903) 6 O.L.R. 697 (Ont. H.C.). In ultimately concluding that the “double cousins” do not receive double the inheritance, and that all cousins receive the same amount, Justice Meredith states the following:
“Under the Devolution of Estates Act all the property in question is to be distributed as personal property is now distributable. And among collateral relatives in the same degree of kinship it is so distributable equally. They take in their own right, not by way of representation. And there is no question of quantity or quality of blood; those of the half-blood take equally with those of whole blood; and those of the double blood — if I may so name a relationship, in the same degree, on the part of both father and mother — take no more, for all are akin to the intestate, and all in the same degree of kinship.” [emphasis added]
Re Adams suggests that being a “double cousin” does not result in double the inheritance, and that a cousin related to the deceased both on the maternal and paternal sides receives the same as if they had only been related to the deceased once. Those of you looking to explore unorthodox family trees in a goal to maximize potential distributions to you on an intestacy will have to look elsewhere.
Thank you for reading.