England and Wales has one of the freest will-making traditions in the world. There is no forced share for children, no fixed portion for a spouse: you may leave everything to a neighbour, a donkey sanctuary or a single favoured grandchild. What the law adds is a safety valve. Under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, a limited group of people can ask the court to award them something from your estate if your will, or the intestacy rules, fail to make reasonable financial provision for them. That application is an Inheritance Act claim, and anyone planning to leave someone out should understand how it works.
Can you disinherit someone in England and Wales?
Yes. Nothing stops you writing a valid will that leaves a child, a sibling or even a spouse nothing at all, and a will that does so is not invalid because of it. The 1975 Act does not overturn the will. It lets the court make an order adjusting how the estate is distributed, and only if an eligible person shows that the provision they received was not reasonable in the circumstances. The distinction matters: disinheritance is permitted; it is simply not always final.
It is also a separate thing from challenging a will’s validity. A claim that the will-maker lacked capacity, was pressured, or signed without the proper formalities attacks the will itself, and a successful one throws it out. What makes a will valid is its own subject. An Inheritance Act claim accepts that the will stands and asks the court to rebalance it.
Who can bring an Inheritance Act claim?
The Act sets out the categories of applicant, and nobody outside them can claim, however close they were:
- A spouse or civil partner of the person who died
- A former spouse or civil partner who has not remarried or formed a new civil partnership, although a financial order made on divorce often bars this
- A cohabitant who lived with the deceased as though married or in a civil partnership for the whole of the two years before the death
- A child of the deceased, of any age, minor or adult
- Someone treated by the deceased as a child of the family, which is how most stepchildren qualify
- Anyone else who was being maintained, wholly or partly, by the deceased immediately before the death
Siblings, nieces, nephews and friends who were not financially dependent are not on the list. Unmarried partners are, but only once the two-year threshold is met, which is one reason wills for unmarried couples matter so much: the claim is a fallback, not a plan.
What does the court actually look at?
Two standards apply. A surviving spouse or civil partner is judged against what it would be reasonable for them to receive, whether or not they need it for maintenance. The yardstick is often compared with what they might have received on divorce, and it is generous. Every other applicant, adult children included, is limited to reasonable provision for their maintenance: enough to meet day-to-day living costs, not a fair share of the estate.
Within those standards, section 3 of the Act lists the factors the court weighs. They include the applicant’s financial resources and needs, now and in the foreseeable future; the needs of the other beneficiaries; any obligations the deceased owed the applicant; the size and nature of the estate; any disability; and any other matter the court considers relevant, which includes the conduct of the applicant and of the deceased.
The adult child claim, and what Ilott changed
The case everyone cites is Ilott v The Blue Cross, decided by the Supreme Court in 2017. A mother left her estate of around £486,000 to animal charities, deliberately excluding a daughter she had been estranged from for decades. The daughter, living on benefits, claimed. After years of appeals the Supreme Court restored the original award of £50,000, and it made a point that has shaped every case since: the 1975 Act is not a route to a fair share, and the will-maker’s wishes, and their reasons, carry real weight.
In practice this means an adult child who is financially independent faces an uphill claim. One who is in genuine need, particularly where the deceased had supported them or where there is disability, stands on firmer ground. Estrangement counts, but it is not a trump card. Its weight depends on who caused it and how long it lasted.
The six-month time limit
A claim must normally be issued within six months of the grant of representation, the document that authorises the executors to deal with the estate. It can be made before the grant too. The court can allow a late claim, but it needs persuading, and the longer the delay and the more of the estate already distributed, the harder that is.
This is why careful executors hold back from distributing the estate until six months after the grant, even when the beneficiaries are impatient. Distribute sooner and a successful late claim can leave an executor personally exposed. It is one of the quiet protective waits covered in what an executor does. The court can also, in some circumstances, reach assets outside the will, such as the deceased’s share of a jointly owned home.
Where these claims tend to arise
- Second marriages, where children of a first relationship find everything passing to a stepparent, or a new spouse finds the estate tied up for children they barely know; blended family wills are built to head this off
- Long cohabitation without a will, where intestacy gives an unmarried partner nothing and the claim is the only route left
- Estranged children, excluded in favour of charities, friends or a sibling who stayed close
- Adult children with disabilities or caring responsibilities, whose needs outlast any gift
- People the deceased was quietly supporting, such as a relative whose rent they paid for years
How to leave someone out and make it hold
No will can guarantee that a claim fails, and a solicitor who tells you otherwise is overselling. What you can do is make the court’s job easy, and a claim less attractive to bring in the first place:
- Write down your reasons, factually and without venom: when contact ended, what support you gave, why others need the money more. A signed explanation kept with the will is admissible as evidence, and a letter of wishes is the natural home for it
- Consider a modest gift rather than nothing at all; it shows the omission was considered rather than forgotten, and can take the heat out of a dispute
- Keep the will current: reasons recorded thirty years ago, before a reconciliation or a change in someone’s health, carry less weight
- Look at the whole picture, including pensions, life insurance and jointly owned property, since the court will look at all of it
- Take proper advice where the stakes are high, especially where a spouse is to be excluded, because the spouse standard is the hardest to plan around
Where Willful fits
Willful’s will interview includes a dedicated step for deliberate exclusions. If there is someone you mean to leave out, you record who they are and why, and those reasons go to the SRA-regulated solicitor who reviews your will, held on the file rather than printed in the will itself, so the solicitor can check the decision is freely made and flag where the 1975 Act may still bite. A separate letter of wishes step lets you explain your thinking in your own words. The will types we prepare, from mirror wills to blended family structures, show which arrangement fits your family, and how it works sets out each step from interview to signed will.