Blogocentric Formulations

Bona Vacantia

In my last blog post, I took a somewhat critical look at America, so I suppose it's only fair that at least one of my other blog posts this month also takes a critical look at somewhere else. No country is perfect and, while the UK certainly isn't, I read an article this this morning that shined a light on a very particular and disturbing quirk of the UK's system of government:

How Royal Estates Use Bona Vacantia to Collect Money from Dead People  

In short, bona vacantia (Latin for "vacant goods") is the process whereby the government can take assets for themselves from private citizens, if there is no will indicating where those assets should go, and no next of kin can be located. And without getting into the "well how hard is the government really looking for next of kin if they stand to benefit should no one be found?" of it all, this sorta makes sense on its face. If nobody can be found to pass the assets onto, then the government can claim them.

Here's the problem in the UK. There are two places where that money doesn't go to the Treasury, but rather into the pockets of royals. The Duchy of Lancaster (owned by the current monarch... currently King Charles III) and the Duchy of Cornwall (owned by the heir apparent... currently Prince William). Which means that, in addition to all the wealth and assets the royal family has access to through the monarchy, King Charles and Prince William also have this additional income (which is considered their "private income" but not subject to any kind of taxes or other income-based regulations of other people) that they receive. To give you an idea of the scope, it's estimated that King Charles III's annual payout from this income was £26 million last year.

Since the 1980s, the Duchies have maintained that the money collected from bona vacantia has been donated to charity, but this article from the Guardian   which says, "However, only a small percentage of these revenues is being given to charity. Internal duchy documents seen by the Guardian reveal how funds are secretly being used to finance the renovation of properties that are owned by the king and rented out for profit." So, I suppose the "charity" they're donating to is... themselves? To minimize expenses and maximize profits? The article goes on to say:

Three sources familiar with the duchy’s expenditure confirmed the estate was using revenues collected from dead citizens to refurbish its profitable property portfolio, making considerable savings for the estate. One said duchy insiders regarded the bona vacantia expenditure, which has until now not been publicly disclosed, as akin to “free money” and a “slush fund”.

I don't know about you, but when the people doing the actual shady money stuff call what they're doing a "slush fund" that's usually not a good sign that what they're doing is on the up and up. And, as usual, it's become problematic because it's been taken way too far. It's one thing if the laws of a country have this bona vacantia rule specifically for the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster. That is what it is. But then they had to take it a step further and misrepresent how those funds are being spent, claiming they go to charity when they're really being reinvested in the organization that's supposed to be sending those funds to charity instead.

It's really sad to me that corruption is so rampant among the wealthy. That "because we can get away with it" is an apparently acceptable rationale for doing unethical (or in some cases blatantly illegal) things in the name of increasing one's wealth. Our socioeconomic system is already set up in a way that unfairly benefits the wealthy; it really riles me up when I read articles like this that show that all that privilege and access still isn't enough and that wealthy people have gone to even more extremes to maximize their income and net worth.

The monarchy has come under a lot of criticism lately, and this seems like yet another bad news cycle they're about to (deservedly) endure for sketchy practices that should not be a thing.