Property – Cohabitation – Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 – Claimant living in same household as deceased as unmarried couple immediately prior to his death – Claimant claiming entitlement to provision from deceased’s estate – Court ruling that claimant being entitled to reasonable financial provision – Defendant sons appealing against decision – Whether claimant being person living in same household for statutory two-year period – Appeal dismissed
The claimant met the deceased in May 2005, soon after the death of his wife. In June, the claimant and the deceased became engaged. At that time, the deceased was living in the family home with his sons, the defendants who strongly disapproved of the relationship. In July 2006, the couple moved into the same flat and lived together in the same household for about one year and 49 weeks immediately prior to the death of the deceased in June 2009. That period was three weeks short of the two-year period required for section 1(1A) of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 to apply entitling the claimant to financial provision from the deceased’s estate as a person who “during the whole of the period of two years immediately before the date when the deceased died… was living (a) in the same household as the deceased, and (b) as the … wife of the deceased”.
A dispute arose over the woman’s entitlement to provision from the man’s estate and whether an earlier 3-month period, from July to September 2006, could be counted towards the stipulated two-year period. The court decided as a preliminary issue that the claimant was a person to whom the 1975 Act could apply. The defendants appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The judge had correctly directed himself as to the principles to be applied. The test was: (i) whether there was a settled relationship creating a tie between the parties, evidenced not simply by “their living under the same roof but by the public and private acknowledgment of their mutual society and the mutual protection and support that binds them together”; and, if so, (ii) whether that relationship had irretrievably broken down or, was merely suspended, with any interruption being transitory: In re Dix, deceased [2004] 1 WLR 1399 applied.
The conclusion reached by the judge had been open to him on the facts. He had been entitled to conclude that the settled relationship between the claimant and the deceased had continued through the disputed period to the deceased’s death. He had been entitled to reach that conclusion on grounds not dependent on finding that the couple had been living under the same roof at any particular time or place within the disputed period.
Martin Young (instructed by Arora Lodhi Heath Solicitors) appeared for the claimant; Mark Blackett-Ord (instructed by IBB Solicitors) appeared for the defendants.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
