Inheritance Wars: The Mother Who Left Her Daughter Nothing — and £486,000 to Animal Charities

Can a parent leave an adult child nothing?

The starting point in English law is important: yes.

Unlike legal systems which provide children with fixed or compulsory shares of a parent's estate, English law gives considerable weight to testamentary freedom. A parent can favour one child over another. They can leave their estate to friends. They can leave it to charity. They can deliberately exclude an adult child.

But testamentary freedom is not absolute. The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 gives the court power in defined circumstances to make reasonable financial provision from an estate.

Few cases illustrate the tension between those two principles better than Ilott v The Blue Cross & Ors [2017] UKSC 17.

The dispute involved a mother and daughter who had been estranged for approximately 26 years. The mother deliberately left her daughter nothing. Instead, most of her estate of approximately £486,000 was left to three animal charities.

The daughter challenged the position under the 1975 Act. She succeeded. But the argument about how much she should receive eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court.

A relationship broken when Heather was 17

Heather Ilott was the only child of Melita Jackson. Their relationship broke down in 1978 when Heather, aged 17, left home to live with her boyfriend. Mrs Jackson disapproved of the relationship. Heather subsequently married him and they had five children.

The estrangement between mother and daughter continued, with limited and unsuccessful attempts at reconciliation, for the remainder of Mrs Jackson's life. It lasted approximately 26 years.

This was therefore not a situation in which a parent suddenly decided shortly before death to exclude a child. Mrs Jackson's decision was longstanding.

"She receives nothing"

Mrs Jackson had decided as early as 1984 that Heather should not inherit from her. Her final will was made in 2002. It made no provision for Heather.

Mrs Jackson also left a letter explaining her decision and instructed her executors to resist any claim her daughter might make.

Most of the estate was instead left to three animal charities:

• The Blue Cross;
• the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; and
• the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Mrs Jackson was entitled to make that decision. But after her death, Heather brought a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.

The Inheritance Act does not simply rewrite an unfair will

This distinction is fundamental.

The 1975 Act does not give the court a general power to rewrite somebody's will merely because a judge thinks a different distribution would have been fairer. Nor does an adult child automatically have a right to a particular percentage of a parent's estate.

The statutory question is whether the will — or intestacy — failed to make the reasonable financial provision which the Act requires for the particular applicant. For an adult child, the relevant standard is generally provision which it would be reasonable for them to receive for their maintenance.

That is important. The question is not "what would be a fair share of Mum's estate?" It is a statutory assessment of reasonable financial provision.

Heather's financial circumstances

Although Heather had lived independently from her mother for many years, her family's financial circumstances were difficult. She and her husband had five children. They lived in housing association accommodation. Their income was modest and they relied substantially upon state benefits. There were significant household needs.

Those financial circumstances had to be balanced against other powerful factors. Heather had been independent of her mother for decades. There had been no financial dependence. The estrangement was longstanding. Mrs Jackson had deliberately and consistently chosen to exclude her. And English law recognises the importance of testamentary freedom.

The first award: £50,000

At first instance, District Judge Million concluded that Mrs Jackson's will failed to make reasonable financial provision for Heather. He awarded her £50,000.

That was already significant. An adult daughter who had been estranged from her mother for 26 years and whom her mother had expressly excluded from the will had nevertheless established an entitlement to financial provision from the estate.

But Heather considered £50,000 insufficient. The litigation continued.

The Court of Appeal

Eventually the case reached the Court of Appeal, which substantially increased the provision.

It awarded approximately £143,000 to enable Heather to purchase her housing association property, together with the reasonable costs of acquisition. It also provided for an additional amount of up to £20,000, structured with her means-tested benefits in mind.

That result attracted considerable attention. It appeared to suggest that an adult child deliberately excluded from a parent's will might nevertheless receive a substantial part of the estate.

But the charities appealed.

The Supreme Court

In March 2017 the case reached the Supreme Court. Seven Justices considered the appeal. The charities succeeded unanimously.

The Supreme Court concluded that the Court of Appeal had not been entitled to interfere with the original judge's assessment in the way that it had. The original award of £50,000 was restored.

The decision remains one of the most important modern authorities on claims by adult children under the 1975 Act.

Testamentary freedom still matters

Lord Hughes began the substantive judgment by emphasising an important characteristic of English succession law: individuals generally have freedom to decide how their property should pass after death. The 1975 Act qualifies that principle, but does not abolish it.

That matters particularly in adult-child cases. The existence of financial need does not automatically determine the outcome. The court must consider the statutory factors and circumstances as a whole.

In Ilott those circumstances included two particularly powerful considerations: Heather's very difficult financial circumstances, and the exceptionally long estrangement from her mother. The Supreme Court considered the District Judge entitled to balance those factors as he had.

Does an adult child have a right to inherit?

Ilott is sometimes misunderstood.

It does not establish that an adult child who has been disinherited automatically receives something from their parent's estate. They do not. Nor does it establish that estrangement prevents an adult child from making a successful claim. It does not.

Instead, the case demonstrates how fact-sensitive claims under the 1975 Act can be. Relevant matters may include:

• the applicant's financial resources and needs;
• the financial circumstances of other applicants and beneficiaries;
• obligations and responsibilities of the deceased;
• the size and nature of the estate;
• disability;
• the relationship between the applicant and deceased;
• estrangement;
• contributions made by the applicant;
• the deceased's reasons for their testamentary decisions; and
• any other relevant circumstances.

There is no simple formula.

Need is not the same as entitlement

One of the most important lessons from Ilott is that financial need matters, but it is not necessarily decisive.

An adult child may be in difficult financial circumstances. That does not mean the court simply calculates the child's needs and orders the estate to meet them. Conversely, a long estrangement does not automatically defeat a claim.

The statutory exercise requires evaluation. That creates uncertainty. And uncertainty creates litigation risk.

Why Ilott matters for mediation

Inheritance Act claims are particularly suitable for mediation because the legislation itself requires a broad evaluative exercise. Both sides may have perfectly respectable arguments.

The claimant may say: "I am the deceased's child. I have genuine financial needs and the will makes no provision for me."

The beneficiaries may say: "The deceased deliberately chose this outcome and we are entitled to ask the court to respect that decision."

Both propositions can have legal force. The eventual result depends upon the facts and the exercise of judicial discretion. That makes predicting the precise award difficult.

Litigation changes the inheritance

There is also an economic reality. Every pound spent litigating an inheritance dispute has to come from somewhere.

There are legal costs. There may be estate administration costs. There may be delay. Property may remain unsold. Beneficiaries may be unable to receive their inheritance. And the claimant may incur substantial personal costs pursuing the claim.

By the time Ilott reached the Supreme Court, the dispute had passed through several levels of the court system. Most estates cannot sensibly sustain litigation on that scale.

Mediation can deal with more than the court can

A mediator does not decide what constitutes reasonable financial provision. Instead, the parties can examine the litigation risks and construct their own solution. That might involve:

• a lump-sum payment;
• provision for housing;
• transfer of property;
• a life interest;
• payment of debts;
• provision structured around particular financial needs;
• arrangements concerning estate assets;
• settlement of legal costs; or
• combinations of those solutions.

Tax, benefits and financial consequences may require appropriate independent professional advice. But mediation gives the parties considerably greater flexibility than a binary fight over the amount a court should order.

Estrangement makes these cases intensely personal

Ilott also illustrates why inheritance disputes can be unlike ordinary commercial litigation.

The legal dispute arose from a relationship which had broken down more than a quarter of a century earlier. The court had to consider events stretching back to Heather's teenage years. There had been attempts at reconciliation. There were competing perceptions of responsibility for the estrangement. Mrs Jackson remained deeply hurt. Heather had her own perspective on what had happened.

By the time litigation begins, the parties can therefore be arguing simultaneously about money, family history, fairness, need and the deceased's final wishes.

A judgment can determine the legal dispute. It cannot repair 26 years of family history.

What if the beneficiaries are charities?

Ilott also raised an interesting feature which frequently appears in contested estates: the principal beneficiaries were charities rather than other relatives.

A charity named in a valid will is entitled to defend its entitlement. There is nothing legally inferior about a charitable beneficiary. Indeed, charities have duties concerning the assets left to them.

At the same time, litigation has costs and risks for everyone. A mediated settlement can allow charities, family members, executors and other beneficiaries to evaluate those risks without conceding the legal principles upon which they rely.

The lesson from Ilott

Ilott v The Blue Cross does not provide a simple answer to the question "can an estranged adult child challenge a parent's will?"

The better answer is: sometimes.

A claim under the 1975 Act is not a general appeal against an unfair inheritance. But neither does complete estrangement necessarily prevent an adult child obtaining reasonable financial provision. Everything depends upon the statutory criteria and the particular facts.

That uncertainty is precisely why these disputes can be expensive to litigate and why early specialist advice is essential. It is also why mediation should be considered before the costs of determining the "right" figure begin to consume the estate from which everybody hopes to recover.

In Ilott, the courts spent years considering whether the appropriate provision was £50,000, more than £160,000 in housing and cash provision, or something else. The Supreme Court ultimately restored the original £50,000 award.

For parties facing an Inheritance Act dispute today, there is an obvious question worth asking much earlier:

"Can we agree the figure ourselves?"

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Related reading: our practice pages on Inheritance & Wills, including Inheritance Act claims and contested wills, and Probate & Estates; how mediation works; the rise in probate caveats and contested probate claims; and our mediators.