Uniform Simultaneous Death Act

The Uniform Simultaneous Death Act governs how property passes when two or more people die at or near the same time and it cannot be established who survived whom. Rather than turning inheritance on split-second questions of survival, it requires a person to outlive the other by a set minimum period in order to take, applying that rule to donative provisions in governing instruments as well as to property held with a right of survivorship, and treating anyone who falls short of it as having died first. It further addresses what counts as evidence of death or survivorship, identifies circumstances in which the survival requirement does not apply, protects payors, good-faith purchasers, and other third parties who act before the outcome is settled while making recipients personally liable for what they were not entitled to receive, and directs that its terms be applied and construed consistently with the versions in force in other adopting states.

Editorial summary generated from the text of this act. It is not part of the statute — read the sections below for the operative language.