The 1975 Act 50 Years On: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Today marks 50 years since the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (the 1975 Act) came into effect in England & Wales.

After thousands of claims, numerous appeals and two trips to the UK Supreme Court with a 1975 Act claim at their centre in the last ten years, the 1975 Act has been tested and refined over fifty years with the benefit of judicial oversight.

Looking back

The courts have drawn a clear distinction between the standard for spouses and for all other applicants. For non-spouses, “reasonable financial provision” means provision for maintenance (following the Supreme Court’s decision in Ilott v The Blue Cross in 2017). For spouses, it is such provision as would be reasonable in all the circumstances (not limited to maintenance), with the “divorce cross‑check” deployed as a sense‑check (enabling the 1975 Act jurisdiction to develop in parallel with financial remedy proceedings).

The decision in Ilott reaffirmed that adult children (including those non-biological children treated as children of the family) have no automatic expectation of maintenance: “needs” are a relevant factor but not decisive; testamentary freedom remains a powerful consideration; and the section 3 factors must be weighed holistically, including the size of the estate, competing claims, and any letter of wishes evidencing the deceased’s intentions.

Post-Ilott, one section 3 factor which is becoming increasingly relevant to children claims is whether the applicant or any beneficiary of the estate has a physical or mental disability. An increased understanding of disabilities and the tailored support that can be given to meet these needs means they increasingly feature in and strengthen 1975 Act claims.

Cohabitants’ claims, introduced by an amendment to the 1975 Act in 1996, have required the courts to consider what it means to have lived “as the spouse or civil partner of the deceased” for at least two years immediately before death, and to assess maintenance‑based awards that respect autonomy while preventing hardship. A fact‑sensitive approach has emerged for cohabitant claims, focussing on mutual commitment, interdependence and the reality of shared lives.

Similarly, the possibility of claims brought by those maintained by the deceased (although not employees or contractors) and claims by children who may not be biologically children, but have been treated as children of the family, allows the 1975 Act to apply to complex and less traditional family structures. The broad definitions of each of these terms means the 1975 Act has been able to adapt alongside societal changes to the concept of family.

Claims must be brought within 6 months of the date of grant of probate and the courts may not be willing to allow applications for claims out of time – particularly where the claim is not considered to have reasonable prospects of success. This point has been  considered in numerous cases and recently in in O’Herlihy v Taylor, where the Deputy Master determined that the claimant was on notice of the possibility of bringing a 1975 Act claim and had failed to bring an application to commence the 1975 Act claim out of time in a timely manner. Claims are also only available where the deceased was domiciled in England and Wales at the time of death and again this has led to various decisions about what domicile means in the 1975 Act context.

Looking forward: macroeconomic factors and scope for reform

Demographic and sociological trends point to a potential rise in claims. In the UK alone, the “great wealth transfer” is set to take place over the next two to three decades, with the passing down of £5.5 trillion by the “baby boomer” generation. Complex health needs may lead to an increase in claims based on an applicant’s support requirements under the disability factor, The prevalence of blended families creates complexities for succession planning and has the potential to intensify disputes between different family branches. In this context, transparency will continue to be of the utmost importance when making succession plans.

The legislation concerning wills in England & Wales is the 1837 Wills Act – which approaches its 200th anniversary. This legislation is currently being reviewed and the Law Commission’s 2025 “Modernising Wills Law” report has made proposals which may affect future 1975 Act claims. For example, the report has proposed that the current rule by which a marriage or divorce revokes a will be abolished. One potential consequence of this, which the report identifies, is an increase in 1975 Act claims brought by spouses and cohabitants where the deceased did not make a new will following marriage / divorce.

The same report has also proposed that the 1975 Act be amended so that ‘mutual wills’, which are wills made under an agreement that the testators will not alter their wills after the first of them dies, be brought within the definition of a deceased’s net estate for the purposes of the 1975 Act claim. This proposal may increase the number of claims brought by dependants where no provision is made for them as a result of a mutual wills arrangement.

Claims brought under the 1975 Act only extend to persons who died domicile in England and Wales. A person’s domicile is typically referred to as the place one treats as a permanent home and where their roots lie. Last year, for inheritance tax purposes, the law in England has been reformed to replace concepts of “domicile” with a new residence-based system. It would be interesting to see whether there is any similar reform in the future of the 1975 Act, which may widen the net of claims which may be brought under the 1975 Act, where a deceased person would not previously be considered “domiciled” in England and Wales.

Despite the number of claims brought under the 1975 Act, there are factual aspects of these claims which are left un-tested before the highest courts. This includes a claim brought by a spouse where a pre-nuptial agreement was entered into. Pre-nuptial agreements will typically stipulate that each party agrees to make a will that makes provision for the surviving party which is at least as generous as the pre-nuptial agreement. The Supreme Court has not yet determined a 1975 Act claim where a pre-nuptial agreement was in place (albeit in the 2022 decision in Hendry v Hendry, the terms of a pre-nuptial agreement which allowed the claimant £10,000 and a one way ticket back to the Philippines were a contributing factor for why a claim was refused when brought out of time) and it would be interesting to see the court’s approach.

Similarly, in the UK Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Standish v Standish, a financial remedy claim about the “matrimonialisation” of assets and the sharing principle, the court clarified that non-matrimonial property (such as dynastic wealth or wealth acquired pre-marriage) should not be subject to the sharing principle on divorce (although it can be subject to the principles of needs and compensation). This gives rise to interesting implications for 1975 Act claims made by a spouse. It appears to clarify that, when evaluating the size and nature of the estate and the divorce cross check in a 1975 Act claim, the Court will now need to consider: i) whether any property in the deceased’s estate should be considered to be non-matrimonial; and ii) if so, in considering the divorce cross check, whether the Court should discount non-matrimonial property when deciding any award for the claimant. In 1975 Act claims in relation to large estates, it is likely to be argued that non matrimonial property is “off-limits” to a surviving spouse so long as a needs based claim is met (although the 1975 Act jurisdiction is inherently different to financial remedy proceedings in that there is only one spouse remaining whose needs must be met and which can lead to more generous awards to that spouse).

To conclude as we look ahead to the next 50 years of the 1975 Act, it is inevitable that macroeconomic and sociological factors, together with new factual matrices, will present future challenges for claims and for those considering them. It will be interesting to see how claims are shaped as a result.