Member Article

Inheritance Act case heading to Supreme Court

The forty-year-old Inheritance Act is at the centre of an appeal and potential landmark ruling that will be heard in the UK Supreme Court on the 12th December 2016.

The long-running case of Ilott vs Mitson was originally heard in 2011 and then by the Court of Appeal in June last year, based on the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 that allows wills to be challenged by individuals who believe they have been unjustly excluded.

“Last year, the case of Ilott vs Mitson triggered a media storm and huge interest from the legal profession,” explains Laura Abbott, a wills and estates dispute resolution lawyer at Midlands and South West firm Lodders.

“It utilised the 1975 Act - which allows for wills to be varied in order to provide for any person who believes they have been excluded or short-changed - to support a daughter’s appeal to overturn her mother’s wishes to leave her out of any inheritance, and secure an award of more than £160,000.

“When her case is heard in the Supreme Court, it will be the latest step in a five-year legal battle to challenge her mother’s decision not to leave her a single penny - a decision dating back 37 years, when her mother in fact wrote her out of her will after the daughter Heather Ilott, had eloped.

“In the case, Heather Ilott, who has five children and very little money, was awarded a share of the estate of her late mother Melita Jackson, on the basis that her will failed to make reasonable financial provision for her.

“The charity beneficiaries of Mrs Jackson’s will obtained leave to take the case to the UK Supreme Court over the England & Wales Court of Appeal’s (EWCA) decision in the case,” says Laura.

The case began in 2011, when Heather Ilott was awarded £50,000 of her mother’s £486,000 estate. Laura explains: “This was increased to £164,000 last year when the court described her mother’s actions in excluding her daughter in her will as ‘unreasonable, capricious and harsh’. The Court’s decision to increase Ms Ilott’s reward was in recognition of her very low annual income that overrode the 1975 Act’s usual requirement that the applicant should be dependent on the deceased.

“It will certainly be interesting to see how the Supreme Court will approach the case, and what its decision will be.”

This month, the 1975 Act was behind a ‘reasonable provision’ claim in a separate case brought by a daughter on her deceased father’s estate.

Laura explains: “Forty-one-year-old Ms Ames and her two teenage children are dependent on her long-term cohabitant, as she has no paid work. Her father divorced from her mother in the 1970s and remarried, and left his entire estate to his second wife Elaine, now 63 and in poor health. Ms Ames made a claim on her father’s estate under the Inheritance Act 1975, but the judge hearing the case at London County Court ruled that even considering ‘the financial resources and needs which the applicant, and any beneficiary of the estate of the deceased, has or is likely to have in the foreseeable future’ within the Act, the value of the estate was insufficient to support both the second wife and daughter.

“The reasonable provision claim on the estate was dismissed because, among other reasons, she was capable of working and her lack of employment was a ‘lifestyle choice’.”

Celebrating its 230th anniversary this year, Lodders has 25 partners, a portfolio of sector and market specific legal teams, over 120 fee earners and support staff across its office network, and has recorded year-on-year growth in recent years.

It is an established and thriving law firm based in Cheltenham, Stratford upon Avon and Henley in Arden, and is recognised as a leading private client law firm, offering specialist advice to both private individuals and privately owned businesses, including its highly regarded work in the agricultural and real estate sectors. For more information, visit: www.lodders.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Lodders Solicitors LLP .