How beneficiaries can rewrite what a will or intestacy gives them after death — and the tax conditions that make the redirection effective.
An estate's destination is not fixed at death: those who inherit can redirect or refuse what they receive, with consequences that reach into the tax treatment of the whole estate. This chapter begins with the two principal mechanisms, focusing on the deed of variation — including the beneficiary's control over who takes the redirected benefit and whether part of a gift can be varied alone. It then examines disclaimers, where the refused property passes, how accepting a benefit bars the right to disclaim, and how a disclaimer differs from a variation. Finally it sets out the reading-back rules: the conditions and time limit for a variation to be treated as the deceased's own disposition for inheritance tax, and the parallel conditions for capital gains tax.
