[HPforGrownups] Inheritance in the Wizarding World

[MadameSSnape at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 95959

In a message dated 4/14/2004 11:17:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jones.r.h.j at worldnet.att.net writes:
(1) Once Sirius was convicted, would his property be forfeited to 
the state (if they could find it)?  Obviously they haven't found 
Black manor at Grimmauld Place or his vault at Gringotts.  I don't 
happen to know the state of British law today, but the Salem witch 
trials were governed by British law, and there those convicted and 
executed had to forfeit at least their personal property (not their 
real estate) to the town.
============

Sherrie here:

As to the last part - no, they didn't, necessarily.  Several of the convicted 
made wills while in prison (including John Procter and, I BELIEVE, Giles 
Corey), which were honored after their deaths.

As to the first - wasn't Mummy Black still alive when Sirius went to prison?  
Seems to me I recall him saying she'd died ten years before - which was, 
uh...a couple of years or so after his railro...er, conviction.  If Mum was still 
alive, the house was, IMHO, still hers.  Which means that with her death, 
either Sirius inherited even as a convicted felon and fugitive, or it was 
abandoned for ten years.  What's the law concerning abandoned property?

Sherrie
(who DOES study other historical eras, not JUST the Civil War!)
"Unless history lives in our present, it has no future." 
PRESERVE OUR CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELDS!


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