Inheritance Act 1975 Claims: Eligibility, Deadline, and Orders

Claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 let a limited group of relatives and dependants ask a court in England and Wales to override a will or the intestacy rules when the estate has not made reasonable financial provision for them. You must fall into one of six eligible categories, and you must normally issue the claim within six months of the grant of probate or letters of administration.

Who Can Bring a Claim

The Act is closed to anyone outside its listed categories. You qualify if you are:

The surviving spouse or civil partner of the deceased.
A former spouse or civil partner who has not remarried or formed a new civil partnership. A clean-break financial order from the divorce court will usually bar a claim.
A cohabitant who lived in the same household as the deceased, as if married or in a civil partnership, for the whole two-year period ending immediately before the death.
A child of the deceased, including an adult child, regardless of age.
A person treated by the deceased as a child of the family, such as a stepchild raised in the household.
Anyone who was being maintained, wholly or partly, by the deceased immediately before the death. In broad terms this means the deceased was making a real contribution to that person’s needs without receiving full value in return.

The cohabitant category trips people up. The two years must be continuous, in the same household, and in a relationship that looked like a marriage or civil partnership. A separation shortly before death, or a period living apart, can defeat eligibility on its own.¹

The Two Standards of Provision

Which standard applies to you depends on your category, and the gap between them is wide.

Spouses and civil partners are measured against the more generous standard. The court asks whether the will or intestacy rules made reasonable financial provision, with no cap tied to day-to-day maintenance. Judges also look at what the surviving spouse might have received if the marriage had ended in divorce rather than death, which gives the court a working benchmark.²

Everyone else is measured against the maintenance standard. The court only looks at what is reasonable for the claimant’s financial support in day-to-day terms. The Supreme Court made clear in Ilott v The Blue Cross [2017] that maintenance does not cover everything a claimant might find desirable. Adult children face a particularly high bar, because the court treats them as having no automatic entitlement to a parent’s estate, especially where the parent deliberately left their money elsewhere.¹

The Six-Month Deadline

Claims must be issued within six months of the date the grant of probate or letters of administration is issued. This is a hard deadline. If you miss it, you need the court’s permission to bring the claim out of time, and that permission is not freely given.¹

When deciding whether to allow a late claim, the court looks at whether you acted promptly once you realised you had a claim, whether you began negotiations within the original window, whether the estate has already been distributed, and whether the underlying claim appears strong enough to justify the delay. Once the estate has been handed out and the beneficiaries have spent or committed the money, a late application becomes much harder.

Because the clock runs from the grant, find out as early as possible whether one has been issued. A standing search at the Probate Registry will alert you when a grant is made, giving you the full six months to prepare.

How to Start the Claim

Inheritance Act claims are issued using a Part 8 claim form (Form N208), not the standard Part 7 form used in most civil litigation. The claim can be filed in either the High Court (Chancery Division) or a County Court.³ The court fee for starting a High Court claim of this type is currently £646.⁴ County Court fees may differ.

The written evidence filed with the claim form must include an official copy of the grant and every testamentary document covered by it. If no grant has been issued yet, you can still file, but you must explain why the grant hasn’t been obtained and set out what you know about the estate’s assets, liabilities, and beneficiaries.³

Beyond the mandatory documents, your evidence needs to show a complete financial picture. That means a breakdown of your income from all sources, your monthly outgoings covering housing, bills, food, and transport, and any foreseeable future needs such as medical treatment or retraining. If a disability affects your ability to earn, include supporting evidence. Witness statements from people who can speak to your relationship with the deceased, and to any promises or support the deceased provided during their lifetime, add important context.

Once the court accepts the claim, you must serve the claim form and evidence on the personal representatives of the estate. Other beneficiaries named in the will should also be notified, because any order the court makes will reduce their inheritance.

What the Court Weighs

Section 3 of the Act sets out a checklist the court must work through:

Your financial resources and needs, now and in the foreseeable future, including earning capacity.
The financial resources and needs of other claimants and of the beneficiaries. If the named beneficiaries are themselves struggling, that cuts against diverting their share.
Any obligations and responsibilities the deceased had toward you. Promises of support, a pattern of dependency, or acknowledged responsibilities all strengthen a claim.
The size and nature of the estate. A small estate limits what the court can realistically do without leaving others with nothing.
Any physical or mental disability affecting you or any beneficiary.
The conduct of anyone involved, to the extent the court considers it relevant.
Any other matter the court thinks relevant.

For spouse claims, the court also considers what the claimant might have received had the marriage ended in divorce.²

Conduct is on the list but rarely drives the outcome. Courts avoid picking through family arguments. Extreme behaviour can still matter: in Wright v Wright (2014), a daughter’s claim failed despite genuine hardship after she wrote a letter wishing the deceased dead and engaged in other seriously hostile conduct.

Orders the Court Can Make

If the court finds the distribution unreasonable, it has a broad toolkit:

Periodic payments from the estate, for a fixed period or indefinitely.
A lump sum of whatever amount the court considers appropriate.
Transfer of a specific asset from the estate to the claimant outright.
Settlement of estate property into a trust, which can provide a home or an income without giving the claimant full ownership.
An order that the estate buy property and transfer or settle it for the claimant.
Variation of a marriage or civil partnership settlement connected to the deceased.
Variation of the trusts under which the estate is held, whether created by the will or arising under intestacy.

The court can combine these. A lump sum paired with a right to occupy a property, or periodic payments topped up with a modest capital sum, are common shapes.⁵

Reaching Assets Outside the Will

Property held as joint tenants passes automatically to the surviving co-owner by right of survivorship, outside the will and outside the intestacy rules. Without a specific provision, someone could shelter assets from an Inheritance Act claim simply by holding them in joint names.

Section 9 closes that gap. The court can treat the deceased’s notional share of jointly held property as part of the estate for the purpose of making financial provision. The share is valued as if it had been severed immediately before death, and the court decides how much of that value should be available to satisfy the claim. The power extends to any jointly held asset, including bank accounts and investments.⁶

Lifetime gifts can also be reached. Under Section 10, where the deceased made a gift within six years before death with the intention of defeating an Inheritance Act application, and the recipient did not give full value in return, the court can order the recipient to return money or property to fund the claimant’s provision. The amount clawed back is capped at the value of what was given away. Proving intention is the hard part. A pattern of large gifts to one person shortly after a relationship breakdown, or transfers made after the deceased was warned about a potential claim, can support the argument; routine lifetime giving will not.¹

Settlement and Costs

Most Inheritance Act disputes settle before a contested hearing, and courts actively encourage that. Judges expect parties to consider mediation or negotiation, and refusing without a good reason can backfire at the costs stage. Settlement can take many forms: a negotiated lump sum, transfer of a specific asset, or a compromise on how the estate is divided. One advantage of settling is that parties can agree creative solutions a court might lack the power or inclination to impose.

The usual costs rule in civil litigation is that the loser pays the winner’s costs, and Inheritance Act claims are no exception. The court has broad discretion though, and considers how parties behaved, whether anyone succeeded on specific issues even if they lost overall, and whether reasonable settlement offers were made and rejected. An early, reasonable offer that gets turned down can shift the costs burden sharply if the final order is no better than what was offered. In some cases, particularly where a claim was reasonable but unsuccessful, the court may order costs to come from the estate rather than from either party personally.

1
Legislation.gov.uk. Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
2
Legislation.gov.uk. Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 – Section 3
3
Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Part 57 – Probate, Inheritance, Presumption of Death
4
GOV.UK. EX50A – Civil and Family Court Fees
5
Legislation.gov.uk. Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 – Section 2
6
Legislation.gov.uk. Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 – Section 9