To mark the 50th anniversary of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (‘the Inheritance Act’) receiving Royal Assent on 12 November 2025 Hayley’s specialist Consultancy Team is releasing a series of articles called ‘Inside the Inheritance Act’.
In this chapter of the series, we look at the legal standing that a spouse or civil partner has to bring a claim under the Inheritance Act.
What is the Inheritance Act?
The Inheritance Act is a law which provides a mechanism for certain categories of individuals to seek (increased) reasonable financial provision from the estate of a deceased person where their Will or the intestacy rules have failed to provide that provision for them upon their death.
The categories of applicants who can make a claim include spouses and civil partners.
Who qualifies as a spouse/civil partner of the deceased?
Spouses and civil partners are explicitly included in the class of potential applicants under the Inheritance Act at section 1(1)(a), defined as:
‘the spouse or civil partner of the deceased’
Contrary to a common misunderstanding of the Inheritance Act, it is not a requirement for this category of applicant to evidence that they were financially dependant in any way upon the deceased for them to be eligible to bring a claim against the estate.
A spouse is able to evidence their eligibility to pursue the claim with the production of their marriage certificate.
A civil partner is defined as two individuals who have entered into a civil partnership as defined by the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and from 2019 onwards that includes both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
A civil partner is able to evidence their eligibility to pursue the claim with the production of their civil partnership certificate.
Normally, eligibility is therefore a simple hurdle for spouses and civil partners to overcome and then the court will move on to considering the question of whether reasonable financial provision has been made for you in the Will/under the Intestacy Rules.
What is the standard of reasonable financial provision for a Spouse/Civil Partner?
Spouses and civil partners are treated more favourably by the court than any other category of applicant under the Inheritance Act.
This is because the standard of reasonable financial provision which the court is required to assess for the other applicants is what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case for their maintenance (section 1(2)(b)). For a spouse or civil partner the standard is not limited to what is required for their maintenance and instead is what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case (section 1(2)(a)). This means that a spouse or civil partner does not need to be in financial need of provision from the estate for their claim to be successful.
How does the court then decide if a spouse / civil partner should receive (increased) financial provision from the estate?
That will be decided by the judge weighing in the balance various factors under section 3 of the Inheritance Act. These are:
- the financial needs and resources of the applicant
- the financial needs and resources of any other applicant
- the financial needs and resources of any beneficiary of the estate
- any obligations or responsibilities the deceased had to make provision for the applicant
- the size and nature of the estate
- any physical or mental disability of the applicant or any beneficiary and (g) any other relevant matter such as conduct of the applicant, the deceased or another person.
In addition to those factors, when deciding a claim specifically for a spouse or civil partner, the court will also take into consideration under section 3(2): the age of the applicant and the duration of their marriage/civil partnership as well as the contribution they made to the welfare of the family with the deceased specifically stated to include contributions made by looking after the home or caring for the family. The section also specifies that the court must take into account the provision which the applicant might have reasonably received if on the date of death the marriage had been terminated by divorce rather than death (without that being stated to set an upper or lower limit to the provision which may be made).
What does reasonable financial provision mean?
It is this above latter factor which has led judges to consider divorce caselaw when considering what financial provision would be reasonable for a spouse or civil partner to receive in all the circumstances of the case. That case law tends to start from a position of both spouses and civil partners being entitled to 50% of the joint matrimonial assets. However, the following points are to be noted here:
- This is very much a starting point and section 3(2) makes it clear this should not be determinative of the balancing exercise the judge must undertake when deciding these claims;
- For that reason, it is often the case that applicants under the Inheritance Act may do better than they would have done on divorce given there is only one mouth to feed post-death as compared to two to feed post-divorce;
- It is often overlooked that the starting point relates to the joint matrimonial assets, not the estate assets alone. For this reason it is important to consider a spouse/civil partner’s own independent financial position to assess where the 50% starting position would lie when those are added to the estate’s assets (it is not 50% of the estate’s assets alone which are factored into the equation); and
- Finally, the extent of the provision a spouse/civil partner will often be impacted by the length of the marriage (as section 3(2) specifically refers to) which reflects the fact that under matrimonial law a spouse of a shorter marriage will often be less likely to receive an equal share of the joint matrimonial assets as compared to a spouse of a longer marriage.
It is however clear that from the inception of the predecessors to the Inheritance Act (for details see our separate article in this series) it has always been the main intention of the legislation to ensure that spouses (and now also civil partners) receive the maximum protection to ensure that they are not unjustly prevented from receiving reasonable financial provision. The obligation to therefore make provision for your spouse or civil partner therefore persists after death, even in cases where the spouse or civil partner has been explicitly excluded from their Will, unless exceptional circumstances exist, and even if there has been a breakdown in the relationship or even separation (though not judicial separation) pre-death.
The court has broad powers to award appropriate remedies, including orders for periodical payments, lump sums, and the transfer of specific property to the applicant. In theory the court has the power to redistribute the entirety of the estate in favour of the applicant if it deems that to be reasonable financial provision in all the circumstances of the case, though this would be an unlikely outcome with successful awards normally being made for a lump sum payment or specific property transfers to be made from the estate and the remainder of the estate to be distributed in accordance with the terms of the Will or intestacy rules to the existing beneficiaries.
When should you start an Inheritance Act claim?
The Inheritance Act imposes a time-limit (also called a limitation date) on starting these claims with the court. This is six months from the date of the Grant of Probate / Grant of Letters of Administration. While section 4 of the Inheritance Act permits the bringing of a claim after this time there are various factors which the court must take into account when deciding whether to allow applicants to do so and it can make the claim more difficult to succeed upon. For this reason it is important that you seek specialist legal advice on your rights to bring a claim as soon as possible following the deceased’s death.
SBMB – Specialist Inheritance Act Consultancy Firm
If you have not received adequate provision from the estate of a loved one, contact us for a free initial consultation to discuss your options and the funding arrangements that we offer (such as no win no fee).
Read more in the series: ‘Inside the Inheritance Act’.
For more from Hayley’s specialist Consultancy Team go to ACTAPS Consultancy Firm.
