InHouse Wills & Probate
Wills and Marriage
When making a Will your legal marital status is very important and can make a big difference to family inheritance and tax.
If you are:-
- Single, even if you live with a ‘partner’ as ‘common-law’ husband and wife, the only people to inherit from you (unless you say differently in a Will) will be your blood relatives. Your partner might be able to challenge the situation on the basis that they had become financially dependent upon you - but that involves the courts, along with a guarantee of expense and uncertainty of outcome.
- Getting married, then the act of marriage automatically revokes all existing Wills (unless the Will has very specific instructions to the contrary to show that it was made in anticipation of marriage).
- Married, then your spouse would receive much of your estate even without a Will - but NOT all of it (see Intestacy) .
- Separated or in the process of getting divorced, then there is no change to inheritance - you spouse will still receive exactly the same as when you were living together, unless you update your Will.
- Divorced (that is right through to granting of Decree Absolute, not just a Decree Nisi), then your existing Will remains totally valid but your ex-spouse is treated as if they died on the day of the divorce (so if named as Executor they could not act in the role and any gifts to them in the Will would fail)
- Previously widowed, there may be major inheritance tax savings available but only if you make a special type of Will to exploit the transferable Nil Rate Band
Changing your marital status is a significant life event - you should update your Will at that time to match your changed circumstances.
Only if you are legally married can you exploit ‘spouse exemption’ to avoid inheritance tax.
All the same considerations apply to Civil Partnerships
Wills and Marriage
Your legal marital status is very important when thinking about inheritance and writing a Will and might impact things in ways that you do not expect.