Leaving a Will: Calculating One-Third of an Estate When Delayed Sale Is Specified

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Imam Khamenei

Leaving a Will: Calculating One-Third of an Estate When Delayed Sale Is Specified

English:

Question #1853:

A person has directed in his will that one-third of his property be set aside to be spent on his behalf. However, in a footnote to the will, he mentioned that the one-third share should be met from the proceeds of the sale of a house, which he instructed to be sold after 20 years from his departure. How should this share be calculated? Should it be confined to the house or the entire estate, especially if the proceeds of the sale of the house were not sufficient to make the one-third share?

Answer #1853:

By what he wrote in the will and its footnote if he meant to determine only the house as the one-third while its value does not exceed the one-third after the debts are deducted, then, the one-third includes only the house to which the deceased is entitled. The same ruling is applicable if he wanted to earmark the house for the one-third expenditures, while the value of the house is equal to the one-third of the estate after debt deduction. Otherwise, some other properties among the estate should be added to the house to make it one-third of the estate.

-Imam Khamenei, Practical Laws of Islam, Importance and Conditions of Leaving a Will