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slayer rule

The slayer rule prevents a murderer from retaining a property interest in their victim’s estate. The slayer rule is found in trust and estates law and was designed to prevent people from committing murder to receive their inheritance . The slayer rule allows courts to presume the murderer disclaims  their property interest, and therefore behave as though the murderer predeceased the victim. This has the effect of disqualifying the murderer from receiving property from the estate of the victim. 

The slayer rule applies only if the killing was felonious  and intentional . The murderer is not required to be convicted of the crime, but if they are convicted of murder, the conviction establishes a conclusive presumption  that the murderer did feloniously and intentionally kill the victim. Not-guilty judgments or the absence of criminal prosecution are not conclusive in the application of the slayer rule.  

The Court in Ford v Ford applied the slayer rule according to Maryland common law to determine that a daughter found guilty of her mother’s murder in the first-degree would clearly be barred from her inheritance (though the case was not this cut and dry. The daughter was ultimately not barred from her inheritance since she was held criminally not responsible by reason of insanity , which complicated the intentional condition of the slayer rule). 

[Last reviewed in April of 2025 by the Wex Definitions Team
]

Keywords

• trusts and estates

Wex

• PROPERTY

• property & real estate law

• trusts

• inheritances & estates

• wex definitions

• property law