What Can An Unmarried Partner Expect To Inherit When Bringing A Claim Under The Inheritance Act?

The Inheritance (Provisions for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (Act) allows for certain classes of individuals to bring a claim against a deceased’s estate where no provision has been provided for them by the deceased, either through their Will or under the rules of intestacy.

The Act mainly covers family but also includes any person living with the deceased for at least two years immediately before the death of the deceased. This would allow any partner living with the deceased prior to their death to seek an inheritance if no or little provision has been made for them. Unlike a spouses’ claim, any inheritance claim made by an unmarried partner is potentially limited to reasonable maintenance only.

How is cohabiting defined?

Taking the wording of the Act literally, would define cohabiting to be living with the deceased full-time for two years immediately before they died. Case law has however, shown how this can be widely interpreted in order to allow flexibility as needed with the modern day arrangements. A literal approach could potentially prevent couples who had been together for a number of years but were not formally living together from making a claim, as well as those who may need to travel throughout the year and break the full two years of cohabiting immediately before death.

Case law

The case of Lindop v Agus and Others is an example of a couple living together but retaining their own respective properties, and at a glance would not be expected to be cohabiting. This couple had been together for five years but had not formally moved into one property together. The couple would instead stay at the deceased’s property for the majority of the time but would also stay at the applicant’s property together infrequently. The applicant was not registered as living at the deceased’s property and remained to be registered at her own property. It was held in this case that it is possible to be deemed to be living as one household in more than one property. This shows a focus of looking behind the wording of the Act and placing more consideration on the relationship arrangements.

Similarly, the case of Gully v Dix looked behind the wording of the Act and focused more on the relationship. In this case, the applicant had not lived with the deceased for the three months immediately prior to his death. A literal approach would have prevented the applicant from bringing a claim, however the Judges looked into the relationship and allowed the claim. Although the applicant wasn’t living with the deceased and the relationship was deemed as over, the Judges considered the actions of both and it was clear the relationship was not over and therefore allowed the claim.

Claiming more than maintenance

As well as showing a flexible approach, the referred cases also allowed the applicant to claim more than just reasonable maintenance. The Judge’s appear to take the view that if a relationship is long term and that a couple are living as if they were a married couple, the same provisions should apply as if they were a married couple. This resulted in the applicant’s in both cases receiving a reasonable provision, which is what appears to be reasonable in the circumstances. This allows much larger inheritance to be awarded when compared to reasonable maintenance.

There is no defined number of years when determining what a long term relationship is and when a couple start living as if they were married. This is decided on the facts of each case. It is however expected that this should be at least five years, although there have been cases where an applicant was deemed to be living as the married partner of the deceased when being together less than five years.