The Inheritance Act provides a channel for a person who believes they should have inherited part of a deceased person’s estate to provide reasonable financial provision towards their ‘maintenance’.
For an applicant to be eligible for a claim under Section 1 (1) of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, the claimant must be:
- A spouse or civil partner of the deceased
- A former wife, husband, or civil partner of the deceased who has not remarried
- A person, who for a two-year period prior to the deceased’s death was living with the deceased as a spouse or civil partner
- Children of the deceased – both adults and minors
- Anyone who does not fall into the above categories but was being maintained by the deceased immediately before the Deceased’s death
If the claimant is a spouse or civil partner a reasonable financial provision may extend beyond a maintenance requirement. However, for the rest of the above categories to be, the Court will provide financial provision for a maintenance element only.
What is maintenance?
The Act offers no definition as to what maintenance is. However, we can rely on case law to provide an insight into what is considered maintenance for the purposes of reasonable financial provision. As case law shows each case is dependent on the facts of the case and the Judge deciding it, therefore leaving the definition of maintenance open to broad interpretation.
Case law
In the case of Fennessy v Turner, the Claimant was a 60-year-old male claiming against his deceased’s Mother’s estate. The Deceased left her entire estate to her friend, a vet, who was not in a state of financial hardship. The Court decided even though the Claimant was not a direct dependant of the Deceased when alive, upon her death, he was entitled to an award from her estate towards his day-to-day living expenses. He suffered from osteoarthritis and was unable to undertake a full-time job in order to support himself. He was awarded a total of £177,500 from his mother’s estate for his income, accommodation, and furniture requirements to cover the maintenance element of the Act.
On the other hand, in the case of Lewis v Warner 2017, the Judge confirmed maintenance can be interpreted to include more than just financial benefit and extend to what the person ‘needs’. In this case, the Defendant was a 90-year-old male who was cohabitating with his Partner for 19 years. His Partner passed away and left her estate to her daughter, the Claimant. The Defendant admitted he was financially better off than the Claimant but was in need of living in the house due to him not wanting the hassle of moving house in his mid 90’s and he was comfortable and happy in the area.
The case went to the Court of Appeal which upheld the decision. It was held he was able to purchase the house from the Claimant under the Inheritance Act 1, not for financial provision, but because he was in need. It was held in certain cases, such as this one, that the financial value of a property is less important than the fact of the property itself.
‘If a person is in want of a particular thing to sustain a reasonable quality of life, the provision of it could possibly represent “maintenance” regardless of his financial means’. – Mr Justice Newey
Comment
It’s clear from case law in recent years the term maintenance has very broad meaning under the Inheritance Act and no matter how strong a case may appear to be, each matter is very much decided on a case-by-case basis so the outcome is never certain.
How can we help?
Kirria Hearn is a Trainee Solicitor in our expert Dispute Resolution Team.
For more information regarding the subjects discussed in this article, please contact Kirria or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester, or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online form.