Inheritance Act Claims: Who Can Apply, Deadlines, and Filing

An Inheritance Act claim is an application to a court in England and Wales for financial provision from the estate of someone who has died, brought under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. You can bring one whether the deceased left a will, died intestate, or both, but only if you fall into one of six eligible categories and the deceased died domiciled in England and Wales. The deadline is tight: six months from the date the grant of probate or letters of administration is issued.¹

The court is not asked to rewrite the will because it looks unfair. It applies an objective test: did the will or the intestacy rules fail to make reasonable financial provision for you? If the answer is yes, the court can make an order out of the estate. If no, the claim fails even if the result feels harsh.

Who Can Apply

Section 1 of the Act lists the people who have standing. You do not need to be named in the will.

A surviving spouse or civil partner of the deceased.
A former spouse or former civil partner who has not remarried or entered a new civil partnership.
A child of the deceased, of any age. Adult children can apply, though the standard they are measured against is harder to meet.
Someone treated by the deceased as a child of the family, which covers stepchildren and others raised in the household.
A cohabitant who lived in the same household as the deceased, as if married or in a civil partnership, for at least two continuous years immediately before the death.
Any other person who was being maintained, wholly or partly, by the deceased immediately before the death. This covers people who relied on the deceased for housing, money, or daily support without necessarily being related.

One threshold applies across the board. The deceased must have been domiciled in England and Wales at the date of death. If they were domiciled elsewhere, the Act does not apply even if they owned property here.¹

A quick point of confusion worth clearing. An Inheritance Act claim is not a will contest. A will contest attacks the validity of the document itself on grounds such as lack of capacity, improper execution, undue influence, or fraud. An Inheritance Act claim accepts the will is valid and argues that, valid or not, it failed to provide reasonably for you. The two can be run together, but they are different actions with different evidence and different remedies.

What “Reasonable Financial Provision” Means

The Act uses two different standards depending on who is claiming, and the gap between them is large.

Surviving spouses and civil partners are judged against the higher standard: whether the will made such financial provision as would be reasonable in all the circumstances, whether or not it was needed for their maintenance. Courts often use what the spouse might have received on divorce as a cross-check, though the calculations are not identical. This gives spouses a realistic route to a substantial share of the estate.²

Everyone else is judged against the maintenance standard: whether the will made such provision as would be reasonable for the applicant’s maintenance. The Supreme Court held in Ilott v The Blue Cross (2017) that maintenance does not mean bare subsistence, and it can extend beyond basic bills, but it will not deliver a windfall. The size of the estate caps what is possible. A small estate may stretch only to subsistence, no matter how pressing the need.

Adult children who are physically and financially able to support themselves face the hardest climb. Need alone is not enough. There must be some additional factor — a disability, a promise the deceased made, care the child gave, or similar circumstance — that makes it unreasonable to leave them with nothing.²

What the Court Weighs

Section 3 lists the factors the court must consider. They are weighed together, not scored on a checklist.

Your financial resources and needs, now and in the foreseeable future, including earning capacity.
The financial resources and needs of other applicants and of the beneficiaries under the will or intestacy.
Any obligations and responsibilities the deceased had toward you or any beneficiary.
The size and nature of the estate. A larger estate gives the court more room to provide for you without emptying gifts to others.
Any physical or mental disability of yours or of any beneficiary. A long-term disability that prevents self-support carries significant weight.
Any other matter the court considers relevant. This covers conduct, length of relationship, contributions to the family, and estrangement.

For spouse claims, the court also looks at the applicant’s age, the duration of the marriage or civil partnership, and the contribution made to the family’s welfare, essentially the matrix a divorce court applies.³

What the Court Can Order

If the court decides reasonable provision was not made, Section 2 gives it a wide menu. It can make any of these orders, or combine them:

Periodical payments from the estate’s income or capital, for a fixed term or indefinitely, variable if circumstances change.
A lump sum. This is the most common outcome because it draws a line under the dispute.
Transfer of a specific asset, such as the family home, to the applicant.
Settlement of property on trust, for example a right to live in a house for life without owning it.
Acquisition of property by the estate for transfer or settlement to the applicant.
Variation of a marriage settlement, civil partnership settlement, or trust arising under the will or intestacy.

Orders are often crafted as combinations in practice — a lump sum alongside a property transfer, or periodical payments bridging a property sale.⁴

How to File

Claims under the Act are brought using the Part 8 procedure in the Civil Procedure Rules, on Form N208. This is not the general civil claim form (N1); N208 is used where the court decides a matter mainly on written evidence, though contested Inheritance Act claims can and do run to a full hearing.⁵

On the form, you set out the legal basis (the 1975 Act), your relationship with the deceased, why the current provision is insufficient, and what you want the court to order. You then file written evidence, typically a witness statement, laying out your income, assets, debts, and outgoings in detail. Supporting documents such as bank statements, mortgage records, and valuations of the estate strengthen the case significantly.

The claim can be issued in either the High Court or a County Court with probate jurisdiction. Once issued, the claim form and evidence must be served on the executors or administrators and on any beneficiaries whose position would be affected. Defendants then have 14 days to acknowledge service and indicate whether they intend to contest.⁶

A court fee is payable on issue. The amount depends on the value of the provision you are seeking, and the current schedule is published in form EX50A on GOV.UK.⁷

You do not have to wait for the grant before filing. The Act expressly allows applications before representation is taken out. Most people file after the grant because the estate’s value is needed to frame the claim, but if the six-month deadline is approaching and the grant has not yet issued, file first and refine the detail later.¹

The Six-Month Deadline

The standard limit is six months from the date representation is first taken out, meaning the date the grant of probate or letters of administration is issued. Miss that and you cannot file as of right. You will need the court’s permission, which is not automatic.¹

Courts deciding whether to allow a late application look at whether you acted promptly once you knew of the deadline, whether negotiations were already underway in the six-month window, whether the estate has already been distributed to beneficiaries, and whether you have an arguable case on the merits. If the estate has been fully distributed, a late claim becomes much harder because unwinding completed distributions creates problems for everyone.

If you think you have a claim, take legal advice straight after the death. Do not wait for the grant to appear, do not assume someone else will raise it, and do not let the six-month window close. Issuing a protective claim form early and negotiating later is far better than discovering the deadline has passed.

Most Claims Settle

The majority of Inheritance Act claims resolve by agreement without a contested final hearing. Once proceedings are issued and financial evidence is exchanged, cases typically move into negotiation, whether through solicitor correspondence, a round-table meeting, or formal mediation. Courts actively encourage settlement and may penalise a party on costs for unreasonably refusing to engage.

Settlements can be structured however the parties agree: lump sums, property transfers, ongoing payments, or combinations. A negotiated outcome is faster, cheaper, and private, since court hearings enter the public record. Even where settlement talks break down early, many claims still settle on the courthouse steps once both sides have seen the other’s evidence.

Costs and Funding

Inheritance Act litigation can be expensive. A contested hearing can cost each side tens of thousands of pounds. Even getting to productive negotiation, after exchanging evidence, instructing valuers, and taking advice, typically runs to several thousand.

The default rule is that the losing party pays the winner’s costs, but the court has discretion to depart from this. It considers the conduct of each side, whether reasonable settlement offers were rejected, and whether a party won on some issues while losing overall. That costs exposure is one of the strongest reasons to settle rather than push to trial.

Some solicitors offer conditional fee agreements for these claims, often called “no win, no fee.” You pay nothing upfront and owe no solicitor’s fees if the claim fails. If you succeed, your solicitor charges their normal fees (usually recoverable in part from the other side) plus a success fee uplift that you pay personally and cannot recover. Even under a CFA, you remain at risk of paying the other side’s costs if you lose. After-the-event insurance can cover that risk at a further cost.

If the Will Has a No-Contest Clause

Some wills contain a no-contest clause (sometimes called an in terrorem clause) stating that any beneficiary who challenges the will forfeits their gift. These are not automatically void in England and Wales. Courts have upheld them in some circumstances, particularly where the will already made reasonable provision before the clause was triggered. If you bring a claim and lose a gift under such a clause, the court may refuse to treat that self-inflicted shortfall as evidence that the will failed to provide for you.

That does not mean a no-contest clause will always block a claim. If the will’s provision was genuinely inadequate before any forfeiture, the clause offers the estate less protection. The interaction with the Act is fact-specific, so take advice before filing if the will contains one.

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 1
3
Legislation.gov.uk. Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 – Section 3
4
Legislation.gov.uk. Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 – Section 2
5
GOV.UK. Form N208 Claim Form CPR Part 8
6
Justice.gov.uk. Part 8 Alternative Procedure for Claims
7
GOV.UK. Fees in the Civil and Family Courts Full List EX50A