Continue reading "The 1975 Act: After Ilott"
The applicant, Mr Warner, was the unmarried partner of the deceased. Before her death they had lived together for 19 years at a property in Tewkesbury. Mr Warner continued to live in this property after her death. Mrs Lewis, the daughter of the deceased, brought a claim in the County Court for possession of the property and for the return of certain items under the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. Mr Warner defended this claim, and made a separate application for relief under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (‘the 1975 Act’). It was agreed by the pa...
The testatrix (T) died in 2004 leaving an adult daughter (C) from whom she had been estranged for 26 years. C had left home aged 17 to live with her boyfriend (B), of whom T disapproved. B later became C’s husband and they had five children. At the time of T’s death, C and her family lived in straitened financial circumstances: they lived in a house rented from a housing association, were reliant on benefits save for the husband’s intermittent work as a supporting actor and could not afford new household equipment or family holidays.
During the lifelong estrangement there had been...