A Quick Guide To Making A Claim Under The Inheritance Act 1975

You can challenge a will, or claim against an intestate estate if the distribution fails to make reasonable financial provision for you. The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 gives certain relatives, cohabitants, and dependants a right to apply to court for provision from the estate. You must act within six months of the grant of probate or letters of administration, and you should take legal advice promptly because delay carries real risk.

Key Points

The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 allows certain categories of person to apply to the court for reasonable financial provision from a deceased person’s estate, even where a valid will exists.
Six categories of persons can bring a claim, including spouses, civil partners, former spouses and civil partners who have not remarried, children, persons treated as children of the family, financial dependants, and cohabitants who lived with the deceased as husband or wife (or civil partner) for the whole of the two years immediately before the death, under s.1(1A).
Under s.4 of the Act, a claim must be issued within six months of the first grant of representation; the court has a discretion to allow late claims, but this is exercised cautiously and is never guaranteed.
The court does not award a fixed share of the estate: it considers a range of statutory factors under s.3 and awards whatever provision is reasonable, which may be a lump sum, periodic payments, or a property transfer.
Most claims settle without a trial through negotiation or mediation, but the costs risk if a claim proceeds to a contested hearing is substantial, making early legal advice essential.

If you believe a will or intestacy has left you without adequate support, the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 gives you a route to court. The Act allows specified categories of applicants to ask a court to vary the distribution of an estate where the existing arrangements do not make reasonable financial provision for them.

The remedy is not automatic. The court weighs a range of factors before deciding whether to make a provision and, if so, how much. Awards can take the form of a lump sum, periodic payments, a property transfer, or a settlement on trust, and the outcome depends on the particular facts, the size of the estate, and the competing claims of other beneficiaries.

Who Can Bring a Claim Under the 1975 Act

Section 1 of the Act defines the classes of persons who may apply. They are:

a 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 cohabitant: a person who lived in the same household as the deceased, as the husband, wife, or civil partner of the deceased, throughout the whole of the two years ending immediately before the date of death (s.1(1A));
a child of the deceased, including adult children;
a person who was treated as a child of the family by the deceased, for example, a stepchild; and
any other person who, immediately before the death, was being maintained wholly or partly by the deceased.

The cohabitant category is sometimes overlooked. If you lived with your partner but were not married or in a civil partnership, you may still have a claim, but only if you can demonstrate that you shared a household with the deceased and lived together as a couple for the full two years before the death. A gap in cohabitation, even a short one, can remove you from this category. The requirement is in s.1(1A), inserted by the Law Reform (Succession) Act 1995 and applying to deaths on or after 1 January 1996.

Suppose a Nottingham couple had lived together for seven years, without marrying, when one of them died without a will. The surviving partner has no automatic right under intestacy but may have a claim as a cohabitant under the 1975 Act, provided the continuous two-year condition is satisfied. Advice from a solicitor experienced in wills and probate disputes is the right starting point.

What the Court Takes Into Account

If you are within one of the qualifying categories, the court must then decide whether the existing disposition of the estate makes reasonable financial provision for you. For a surviving spouse or civil partner, “reasonable financial provision” means whatever provision would be reasonable in all the circumstances. For all other applicants, it means a provision that is reasonable for their maintenance.

In deciding whether to make an order and how much to award, the court applies the factors set out in s.3 of the Act. These include:

the financial resources and financial needs of the applicant, now and in the foreseeable future;
the financial resources and financial needs of any other applicant and of any beneficiary of the estate;
any obligations and responsibilities the deceased had towards any applicant or beneficiary;
the size and nature of the net estate;
any physical or mental disability of any applicant or beneficiary; and
any other matter the court considers relevant, including the conduct of the applicant.

The breadth of the final factor gives the court significant room to take account of the specific circumstances, including the nature of the relationship between the applicant and the deceased. The Supreme Court gave important guidance on these principles in Ilott (Respondent) v The Blue Cross and others (Appellants) [2017] UKSC 17. Heather Ilott, an adult daughter estranged from her mother, brought a claim against an estate valued at around £486,000, which her mother had left entirely to three charities. The Supreme Court restored the original district judge’s award of £50,000, reducing the Court of Appeal’s more generous award of £143,000. The court held that reasonable financial provision for an adult child who is not a spouse is assessed by reference to maintenance needs, not by reference to any expectation of inheritance, and that a testator’s decision to benefit charities rather than an estranged child carries real weight.

The Six-Month Time Limit and Court Discretion

Speed is essential. Under s.4 of the Act, a claim must be issued at court before the end of the period of six months from the date on which representation with respect to the estate is first granted. That means six months from the date of the grant of probate or letters of administration, not from the date of death.

The court has discretion to permit a claim to be brought after the six-month period, but it exercises that discretion cautiously. There is no statutory checklist: each application is assessed on its own facts. The court considers whether the applicant acted promptly, whether negotiations began within the time limit, whether the estate has been distributed, whether any alternative remedy is available, and whether the claim has a realistic prospect of success. A strong claim does not guarantee permission to proceed late, and a sympathetic explanation will not save a weak claim from the delay.

The position matters practically. If the personal representatives distribute the estate before a claim is notified, the court’s ability to make effective provision is reduced. A beneficiary who received assets in good faith, without notice of a claim, may not be required to return them. The sooner you act, the better.

Do not rely on an informal agreement with other beneficiaries to extend the deadline. Any decision to allow a late claim belongs to the court, not the parties. Even where all sides agree to delay proceedings, the court retains the final say. The safest course is to issue proceedings within the six-month period and then agree with the other parties to delay service while negotiations continue.

Court Fees and Costs

An Inheritance Act claim is a non-money claim for the purposes of the Civil Proceedings Fees Order 2008. Under the fees schedule confirmed in the HMCTS EX50 civil court fees guide (current as at the review date of this article), the issue fee for a non-money claim in the County Court stands at £377, and in the High Court at £646. These figures reflect the fee structure as updated following the Civil Proceedings and Magistrates’ Courts Fees (Amendment) Order 2025.

The probate application itself is a separate, earlier step. A grant of probate or letters of administration currently costs £300 for estates above £5,000, with no fee for smaller estates; each sealed copy of the grant costs £16 (up from £1.50 since November 2025). If you are administering an estate and need guidance on this, Smalleys offers a dedicated probate service for executors and administrators.

Court fees are only part of the cost picture. If a claim proceeds to a contested hearing and you lose, you may be ordered to pay the other side’s legal costs, which can reach tens of thousands of pounds. This is why the vast majority of claims resolve through negotiation or mediation without a trial. Alternative dispute resolution costs less, preserves family relationships where possible, and avoids the uncertainty of a contested hearing. If you have concerns about affording proceedings, ask your solicitor about conditional fee arrangements and whether you qualify for help with court fees under the EX160 scheme.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if there is no will?

Yes, a claim can be brought whether or not the deceased left a will. Where there is no will, the estate passes under the intestacy rules, and a qualifying applicant may still apply if those rules fail to make reasonable financial provision for them. The six-month time limit runs from the grant of letters of administration, but the same principles apply.

Does the court award an equal share of the estate?

No, the court does not divide the estate equally. The award is whatever the court considers to be a reasonable financial provision having regard to the s.3 factors, assessed on the particular facts. For most applicants, the standard is maintenance, not an equal share.

Can I claim if I was estranged from the deceased?

Yes, estrangement does not automatically bar a claim. It is a relevant factor that the court takes into account. The Supreme Court confirmed in Ilott (Respondent) v The Blue Cross and others (Appellants) [2017] UKSC 17 that estrangement can justify a modest award, or none at all, depending on all the circumstances.

What can I do if the six-month deadline has passed?

You must apply to the court for permission to bring a claim out of time under s.4 of the Act. Permission is not routinely granted: you will need to demonstrate that your claim has a realistic prospect of success and explain the reason for the delay. You should seek specialist advice immediately, as further delay will only weaken your position.

What happens if the estate has already been distributed?

Distribution of the estate before a claim is notified can significantly reduce the practical value of any award, because the court’s powers to recover distributed assets are limited where a beneficiary received them in good faith. Notifying the personal representatives of a potential claim at the earliest opportunity protects your position and puts them on notice not to distribute the estate without accounting for it.

About the Author

Deanne Taylor, Head of Wills and Probate at Smalleys Solicitors.

Deanne (SRA number:162250) qualified as a solicitor in 1993 and has practised in private client law for over thirty years. She was made Partner at Smalleys in 1996, initially heading the Family Department before specialising in wills, probate and estate planning in 2000. Deanne is a member of the Private Client Law Society and of Lifetime Lawyers, the national organisation for solicitors who specialise in advising older and vulnerable clients. She is a regular speaker at events for older people across Nottinghamshire.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority regulates Smalleys Solicitors under SRA number 639164.

Last reviewed: 11 June 2026.