When a substantial estate is involved, it might seem reasonable to assume that a spouse, partner or family member who is already financially secure would have little basis to seek further provision from it. After all, if someone has a comfortable income, owns their home or has significant assets of their own, what additional financial provision could they reasonably require?
The answer is not always as straightforward as you might assume.
Under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, spouses, civil partners, cohabitants, children and certain dependants can apply to the court if they believe reasonable financial provision has not been made for them. Whilst the applicant’s financial needs and resources are among the factors a court will consider when considering an application, they are not the only criteria. And, especially where a substantial estate and complex family or financial arrangements are involved, there can be room for a court to make awards even to wealthier applicants.
Spouses are not held to the same test as everyone else
The spouse of a deceased person is not restricted to an application for provision that would be reasonable for their maintenance like other categories of applicant. The Act allows the court to award a spouse such financial provision as it would be reasonable for them to receive, whether or not it is required for their maintenance. In assessing this, the court can look at the length of the marriage, what each person contributed during it, and what they might have reasonably expected to receive had the marriage ended in divorce rather than death.
That distinction becomes particularly important where wealth within a marriage sits unevenly. For example, consider a couple together for thirty years, where a business, a portfolio of investments and most of the family property have always been held in one spouse’s name. These assets may have been built up by one spouse over decades while the other ran the household and raised the family. During the marriage, that imbalance may never have mattered. But if the Will then leaves the surviving spouse comparatively little, perhaps in favour of children from an earlier relationship, the fact that they have been left sufficient provision for maintenance will not necessarily settle the matter. In reality, the history and circumstances of the marriage may still carry considerable weight.
For other applicants, maintenance still stretches further than people expect
By contrast, financial provision for cohabitants, children and dependants under the Act is limited to what it would be reasonable to receive for their maintenance.
That can sound narrower than it is. In Ilott v The Blue Cross, the Supreme Court confirmed that maintenance is not limited to subsistence and that the appropriate level will depend on the circumstances of each particular case. It can extend to the purchase of property by an estate to meet an applicant’s accommodation needs or the provision of a lump sum to cover maintenance for the foreseeable future. Of course, maintenance for non-spousal applicants will be strictly assessed (especially in circumstances where multiple beneficiaries need to be provided for out of an estate), but claimants with extensive needs (for instance those with severe long-term illnesses or disabilities) are not necessarily limited by the fact that their needs are likely to be highly expensive. If the court decides that the deceased had an obligation to maintain a person, the core consideration will be what contribution it is reasonable for the estate to make towards their maintenance required, bearing in mind all the deceased’s obligations; it will not automatically be deterred from making an award for a claimant whose needs are extensive by the fact that the cost of meeting those needs is high.
However there are limits. The purpose of the Act is not to provide everything an applicant might like to receive, nor to confer capital simply because an estate can afford it. A financially comfortable adult child who had capacity to earn and limited needs not already met out of their income, for example, may struggle to establish any need for maintenance at all.
The fact that an estate may be of high value does not displace the maintenance test, just as an applicant having significant resources of their own does not automatically prevent a claim. Whatever the asset pool available for distribution, the court will look at the applicant’s resources and needs alongside the size and nature of the estate, the position of other beneficiaries and the wider circumstances of the case.
A large estate does not settle things either way
The fact that an estate is valuable does not make a claim more likely to succeed, and it does not testamentary freedom gives way whenever there is enough to go round. The courts have been consistent that the question is not whether the person who made the Will acted reasonably by any moral standard, but whether the Will makes reasonable financial provision for the particular applicant, assessed in light of the criteria set out at s.3 of the Act.
A parent may have good reason to leave considerably more to one child than another, perhaps because of lifetime gifts already made, a business already handed over, or assets kept for a particular branch of the family. Structures such as a family investment company or a trust set up years earlier can also change what actually needs to be dealt with in the Will, and what has effectively already been resolved outside it.
What this means at the planning stage
For clients with substantial and often layered estates, family businesses, trusts and family investment companies among them, this is worth addressing well before any dispute arises. Wherever a Will departs significantly from the arrangements that existed during someone’s lifetime, a spouse receiving unexpectedly limited provision, a long-term partner left out altogether, or one child treated very differently from another, good planning has real value. It can identify where a claim is likely, ensure decisions are properly thought through rather than assumed to be safe, and leave a clear, contemporaneous record of the reasoning if those decisions are later questioned.
And after death?
For those dealing with an estate after death, the same principle applies in reverse. An executor should not assume that a financially secure applicant cannot have a viable claim, just as a disappointed beneficiary should not assume that the size of the estate entitles them to more. These claims each turn on their particular circumstances, and the applicant’s resources are only one part of that assessment.
That is particularly important in substantial estates, where legal ownership may tell only part of the story. The arrangements built up during a marriage or relationship, the way wealth has been structured and the competing claims on the estate can all matter. The question is therefore not simply how much does this person already have, but what, in these circumstances, amounts to reasonable financial provision?
Whether you are planning for the future or facing a dispute now, Buckles’ Private Client and Wills Trusts and Estate Disputes teams work together on exactly this kind of case, from structuring estates to withstand challenge, through to advising executors and applicants once a dispute has arisen. Get in touch to discuss your circumstances.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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