Daniel Craig recently became Hollywood’s highest paid film star, reportedly earning more than £73 million for the two ‘Knives Out’ sequels.

However, he made headlines for a very different reason when he stated he doesn’t want to leave great sums to his children and finds inheritance “distasteful”.

While this may be possible for the English actor, it would be a very different case for the Scottish secret agent he’s famous for playing on screen.

Although James Bond lives in Chelsea and has been travelling the world with the Secret Service since he was 21, the succession of his estate is still likely to be dictated by the law of his home country - Scotland. Domicile is an important legal concept used to determine which legal system applies to an individual.

Through his father (Andrew), James Bond has a Scottish domicile of origin. Although he has spent much of his life abroad for his father’s work and on Secret Service missions, he attended Fettes College in Edinburgh (where Sean Connery also delivered milk!), and stated in On Her Majesty's Secret Service that he is Scottish, indicating that he still feels Scotland is his home.

Until a person moves to a new country with the intention to reside there permanently and indefinitely they retain their domicile of origin, and therefore it’s likely that James Bond’s domicile remains Scottish.

Bond’s Scottish domicile means that forced heirship rules, known as ‘legal rights’, would apply to his estate, irrespective of whether he has a Will. Legal rights automatically entitle a spouse and children to a portion of your moveable worldwide estate, which generally refers to everything but land and buildings.

When a person dies leaving: (a) both a spouse and children, the spouse is entitled to one-third while the children are collectively entitled to one-third among them; or (b) a spouse or children the entitlement is to one-half. The remaining one-third or one-half (as the case may be) is either distributed in accordance with the Will or the rules of intestacy if there is no Will.

Any James Bond superfan will know that Bond is a widower, following the tragic death of his wife on their wedding day. However, he does have a son (also James) with Japanese secret service agent, Kissy Suzuki, who would be legally entitled to claim one-half of Bond’s moveable estate.

Like Daniel Craig, Bond may not wish for his son to inherit half his moveable assets. There are limited steps he could take to protect his estate.

Firstly, he may ask his son to discharge his legal rights during his lifetime (which is competent under Scots law). This is sometimes done when children have received substantial gifts during lifetime and are therefore happy to give up their rights on death.

Alternatively, Bond may invest most of his funds in property (restoring his family’s ancestral Scottish estate, Skyfall Lodge), which would protect them, as they would no longer be moveable estate.

He may also take a page out of Daniel Craig’s book and spend (on a new Aston Martin, exotic foreign holidays and Martinis shaken but not stirred of course) or gift away the funds during his lifetime – either directly to individuals or charities, or to a trust created for them.

Both of these options would be subject to various tax implications, and we would of course always advise 007 take legal advice before pursuing any course of action.

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