For most people in the UK, what happens to your assets when you die is a relatively simple process: you either specify your wishes in a will or your estate passes to your next of kin. But some people have neither: no will, no known next of kin. What happens to their assets is not so simple, and if you live in certain parts of the UK, even less so.

As the Guardian’s investigations correspondent Maeve McClenaghan tells Nosheen Iqbal, if a person dies in England and Wales with no will or next of kin, their money goes to the Treasury. There is, however, an exception for people who die in parts of England with historical links to two royal estates: the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. For those who die within the boundary of the ancient county palatinate of Lancashire, their assets, if unclaimed, go to the king’s private estate, the Duchy of Lancaster. It’s an archaic custom known as bona vacantia.

The duchy has for decades said that after it collects bona vacantia funds and deducts certain costs, the proceeds go to charities. However, the Guardian has revealed that a significant portion of bona vacantia funds are secretly being spent on renovating properties owned by the king that are rented out for profit by his estate.

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