Recipient lifecycle

What happens if a recipient dies, refuses, or disappears before the vault is opened?

Death of a recipient

Detected through the same 4 verification paths as for yourself. The recipient is automatically removed from the equation and the quorum is rebalanced. If the estate executor dies before you, their mandatory consent is lifted.

Prolonged silence (presumed absence)

If a recipient stops signing in to leggit for a period you configure (180 days by default), they are flagged "presumed absent" and automatically removed from the equation. This prevents an unreachable recipient from blocking the procedure.

Explicit refusal to take part

A recipient can explicitly refuse to take part in the release. Immediate removal from the equation and rebalancing of the quorum. If the estate executor refuses, the vault enters "awaiting leggit operator decision" status.

Minimum living threshold

If too many recipients die or refuse, the effective quorum falls below a threshold you have set (2 by default). The vault then enters a "locked — operator decision" state and a leggit operator manually validates the release in degraded mode.