Next of kin

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This article is about the term. For other uses, see Next of Kin

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Next of kin is the term used to describe a person's closest living blood relative or relatives.

In many legal systems, rights regarding inheritance and substitute decision making capacity (for example, in a medical emergency) where no clear will or instructions have been given, and the person has no spouse, flow to their closest relative of the age of majority, usually a parent or a sibling, but occasionally an adult child. However, there are people without any close adult relatives and, in such a case, decision making power often flows to a first cousin, aunt, uncle, or grandparent.

For example, if a person dies intestate, the laws of most jurisdictions require the estate to be distributed to the person's spouse and/or children. However, if there are none of these, the estate can often be distributed to the next closest group of living relatives, whether they be parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts & uncles, or even second cousins in extreme cases. If a person dies intestate with no identifiable next of kin, the person's estate generally escheats (i.e., legally reverts) to the government.

Similarly, the decisions about funeral arrangements for an unmarried person without children are also made by the next closest relative.

In cases of medical emergency, where a person is incapable (either legally because of age or mental infirmity, or because they are unconscious) of making decisions for themselves and they have no spouse or children, medical decisions can be made by the next of kin in preference to the wishes of medical personnel.

The inability of persons who are not in a legal marriage to make decisions with respect to the care of a live-in partner have resulted in many jurisdictions giving live-in partners rights equivalent to a spouse in such situations, even though most jurisdictions still do not require non-spouses to be made beneficiaries of estates (it is improper in most jurisdictions to disinherit a spouse). The inability of same-sex partners to have rights with respect to a partner's medical care or funeral arrangements over and above those of the next of kin was one of the main reasons behind litigation to require same-sex marriage or its equivalent.

For the purposes of next of kin, adopted children are treated as blood relatives. However, relatives by marriage are never considered next of kin.

The opposite term is a stranger in blood.

[edit] Order of Precedence

The following conditions determine the usual order of precedence:

Relatives who are closer in "degree" to the person in question always take precedence. For the purposes of this point, "To determine any person's degree of relation to the decedent, begin with the decedent and follow the line that connects the decedent with the other person. Each person that must be passed through before reaching the final person adds one degree to the total, including the final person." ^[1]
"Of multiple relations with the same degree, those connecting through a nearer ancestor are more closely related to the descendent." ^[1]
After these rules have been applied, the descendents of a person take precendence over their ancestors.
Under some systems, it may also be the case that female relatives take precedence over males, as they are thought to have a higher life expectancy.

Under these rules, an order of precedence is established. Here are the first few in the order (specifically, those up to degree 6):