H. B. 2716


(By Delegate Ashley)

[Introduced January 10, 1996; referred to the

Committee on the Judiciary.]





A BILL to amend and reenact section twenty, article one, chapter
thirty-six of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended; and to amend and reenact section two, article four, chapter forty-two of said code, all relating to obtaining property by right of survivorship; prohibiting a person who, in a criminal action, is convicted of, or who is determined guilty in a civil action of, feloniously killing another to obtain property from the person so killed by joint survivorship provisions; providing for disposition of such property.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section twenty, article one, chapter thirty-six of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted; and section two, article four, chapter forty-two of said code be amended and reenacted, all to read as follows:
CHAPTER 36. ESTATES IN PROPERTY.

ARTICLE 1. CREATION OF ESTATES GENERALLY.
§36-1-20. When survivorship preserved; exceptions.
(a) The preceding section shall not apply to any estate which joint tenants have as executors or trustees, nor to an estate conveyed or devised to persons in their own right, when it manifestly appears from the tenor of the instrument that it was intended that the part of the one dying should then belong to the others. Neither shall it affect the mode of proceeding on any joint judgment or decree in favor of, or on any contract with, two or more, one of whom dies.
(b) When the instrument of conveyance or ownership in any estate, whether real estate or tangible or intangible personal property, links multiple owners together with the disjunctive "or," such ownership shall be held as joint tenants with the right of survivorship, unless expressly stated otherwise.
(c) No person who in a criminal action has been convicted of, or who in a civil action is determined guilty of, feloniously killing another, or of conspiracy of the killing of another, shall take or acquire property by survivorship pursuant to this section, and the property to which the person so convicted or found guilty in a civil action would otherwise have been entitled shall go to the person or persons who would have taken the same if the person so convicted or found guilty had been deceased at the date of death of the person so killed or conspired against.
CHAPTER 42. DESCENT AND DISTRIBUTION.

ARTICLE 4. GENERAL PROVISIONS.
§42-4-2. Homicide bars acquisition of estate or insurance money.
No person who has been convicted of feloniously killing another, or of conspiracy in the killing of another, shall take or acquire any money or property, real or personal, or interest therein, from the one killed or conspired against, either by descent and distribution, or by will, or by any policy or certificate of insurance, or by survivorship pursuant to section twenty, article one, chapter thirty-six of this code, or otherwise; but the money or the property to which the person so convicted would otherwise have been entitled shall go to the person or persons who would have taken the same if the person so convicted had been dead at the date of the death of the one killed or conspired against, unless by some rule of law or equity the money or the property would pass to some other person or persons.






NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to prohibit persons who feloniously kill another person from obtaining property from the person so killed by joint survivorship provisions.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.