Redirecting an Inheritance Within Two Years of the Death

Yes, in most cases you can. If your mother has died and left you a share of her estate, you can choose to pass that share straight to your own children instead, using a document called a deed of variation. Done correctly and within two years of the death, it is treated for tax as though your mother had left the money to your children directly — so it can change who inherits after someone has died without triggering a fresh inheritance tax or capital gains tax charge on you for making the gift.

The key word is your. A deed of variation lets you redirect what you were going to receive. It does not let you rewrite your mother's will for everyone else, and it does not let you touch anybody else's inheritance without their agreement. You are giving up your own entitlement and directing it elsewhere, and the tax rules then let that redirection be "read back" to the date of death, as if it had been in the will all along.

That read-back is what makes a variation useful rather than just a gift. An ordinary lifetime gift from you to your children would start its own seven-year clock for inheritance tax on your estate. A properly drafted variation of an inheritance sidesteps that, because for tax purposes the gift is treated as having come from the person who died, not from you.

The short answer: redirect your own share, within two years

A deed of variation is a written instruction by a beneficiary to give up all or part of what they inherit and have it go to someone else. People use it for all sorts of reasons: to skip a generation and help grandchildren, to even things out between siblings, to direct money to a charity, or to tidy up a will that no longer reflects what the family actually wants.

The passing of your share to your children is one of the most common versions. You inherit from your mother, you do not need the money yourself, and you would rather it went to the next generation. Instead of accepting it and then gifting it on — which has tax consequences for your own estate — you vary your entitlement so that it goes to your children from the outset.

The two-year window is strict. The variation must be made within two years of the date of death for the tax read-back to apply. Miss that window and you can still give the money away, but only as an ordinary gift with the ordinary tax consequences, which is usually the outcome people were trying to avoid.

What "reading back" for tax actually means

This is the mechanism that does the work, so it is worth being clear about it. When a variation meets the conditions and contains the right statements, two pieces of tax law allow it to be treated as though the deceased's will had said what the variation says.

For inheritance tax, the redirected gift is treated as made by the person who died, not by you. So it does not count as a transfer from your own estate, and there is no seven-year survivorship period hanging over it in relation to you. For capital gains tax, an asset that is redirected is treated as passing to the new beneficiary at its value at the date of death, rather than as a disposal by you at today's value, so you do not crystallise a gain by redirecting it.

The government's guidance on how to alter a will after a death sets out the framework, and the underlying rules sit in the Inheritance Tax Act 1984. The read-back is not automatic, though. It only happens if the deed contains the correct elections, which brings us to the conditions.

The conditions HMRC insists on

For a variation to be read back for tax, it has to tick every one of a short list of boxes. Get one wrong and the redirection may still work as a gift, but it loses the favourable tax treatment that was the whole point.

• In writing. A verbal family agreement is not a variation. It has to be a written document.
• Within two years of the death. The clock runs from the date of death, not the date of the grant or the date you found out.
• Signed by everyone giving something up. Every beneficiary whose entitlement is reduced has to agree and sign. You cannot vary away someone else's share for them.
• Containing the right statements. The deed must say that the parties intend the inheritance tax read-back to apply, and, where relevant, the capital gains tax read-back too. These are specific statements, not general good intentions.
• No payment in return. Nobody may receive money or money's worth from outside the estate in exchange for agreeing. If consideration changes hands, the read-back is lost.

There is one more practical point. If the variation increases the amount of inheritance tax the estate has to pay — which can happen where money is redirected away from an exempt beneficiary such as a spouse or a charity — the executors have to be told, and in some cases they must join in. A variation that raises the tax bill cannot be done behind the executors' backs.

In practice a deed of variation is usually drawn up by a solicitor, though there is no legal requirement to use one and no need to send it to HMRC for approval in advance. You simply keep the signed deed with the estate papers, and produce it if the tax position is ever queried. Where the variation changes the inheritance tax due, a copy does need to go to HMRC within a set period after it is made. The document does not have to be lodged with any court or registry to be valid, which is part of why it is such a flexible tool — but that same informality is why the wording of the tax statements has to be exactly right, since there is no official checkpoint that will catch a mistake for you.

Passing your share to your children specifically

The parent-to-child-to-grandchild version is worth a closer look, because it is where most people arrive at this page. The attraction is real: you help your children now, and you keep the value out of your own estate for the future, all in one document and with the death read-back doing the heavy lifting.

But redirecting to children carries its own wrinkles. If your children are under 18, they cannot hold the assets outright, so the variation usually has to route the money into a trust for them, which adds cost and complexity and its own tax rules. Even with adult children, you are permanently giving up money you might one day wish you had kept, and a variation cannot be reversed once signed. It is a decision to make with a clear head, not in the raw weeks after a bereavement.

Some families reach this point because they are worried about a future inheritance tax bill landing on the next generation, and a variation is only one of the tools for that. Others put a life insurance policy in trust so that a lump sum is available to meet a future bill or to leave children a clean, separate sum outside the estate. If that is the worry driving your thinking, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker explain how cover written in trust works alongside, rather than instead of, redirecting what you inherit. Our guide to probate, the estate and inheritance tax sets the options next to one another.

When redirecting an inheritance backfires

A deed of variation is a good tool in the right hands and a trap in the wrong situation. Before signing anything, check yourself against the cases where redirecting leaves people worse off.

You rely on means-tested benefits or care funding. Deliberately giving away money you were entitled to can be treated as deprivation of assets — the authorities can assess you as if you still had it. This bites hardest where someone is receiving means-tested benefits, or where a local authority is funding care. If care fees are already in play, the interaction with a council charge on a property, of the kind we describe in a deferred payment agreement leaving a charge on the house, needs specialist advice before any redirection.

You might need the money yourself. A variation is irreversible. If there is any real prospect you will need what you are giving up — for your own care, your own retirement, an uncertain job — redirecting it is a decision you cannot take back.

Other demands are still hanging over the estate. Redirecting your share does not put it beyond the estate's own creditors or the taxman. The estate still has to be administered properly first — accounts settled, debts paid, and the practical business of a death dealt with, from a DWP overpayment reclaimed from the estate to the everyday tangle of a frozen account and its failed direct debits. You can only redirect what is genuinely yours to receive after all that is done.

What a deed of variation cannot do

It helps to be clear about the limits, because the phrase "changing a will after death" oversells it. A variation cannot rewrite the will for other beneficiaries — it moves only your own entitlement. It cannot be used to defeat a claim by someone the deceased had a duty to provide for. It cannot escape debts the estate owes. And it cannot be undone once made, so a change of heart six months later is not an option.

It also is not a way to make an unfair will fair against the wishes of the people who benefit from it. If a will leaves everything to one child and the others feel hard done by, a variation can only help if the child who inherited chooses to give some of it up. Nobody can be forced to vary their own share.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The inheritance tax and capital gains tax read-back rules are set by UK-wide legislation, so a deed of variation works for tax across the whole United Kingdom, subject to the same two-year window and the same conditions. What differs is the succession law underneath.

Scotland has its own rules of inheritance, including legal rights that give a spouse and children a fixed entitlement to part of the estate regardless of the will, and its own process — confirmation through the sheriff court — for administering it. A variation in Scotland has to work with those rights rather than around them, and where the estate includes property in more than one part of the UK the position gets more involved, as we cover in why an English grant will not by itself deal with a house in Scotland. Northern Ireland has its own succession and grant rules again. In every case the tax read-back is the same UK rule, but whose consent you need, and what you are free to redirect, depends on the local law of inheritance. Take advice in the right jurisdiction before you sign.

Frequently asked questions

Can you change who inherits after someone has died?

A beneficiary can redirect their own entitlement using a deed of variation within two years of the death. It does not rewrite the will for everyone; it moves only what that beneficiary was going to receive, and every adult beneficiary whose share is affected has to agree to it in writing. Done properly, it is treated for inheritance tax and capital gains tax as though the deceased had left it that way.

What conditions must a variation meet for tax purposes?

It must be in writing, made within two years of the death, and signed by everyone giving something up. It must contain the statements electing for it to be read back for inheritance tax and, where relevant, capital gains tax. No payment in money or money's worth may be received from outside the estate in return for agreeing, and where the variation increases the tax due the executors must be involved.

When is redirecting an inheritance a bad idea?

Where the person redirecting relies on means-tested benefits or local authority care funding, giving money away can be treated as deprivation of assets. It is also unwise where they may need the money themselves later, or where passing assets to young children forces the money into a trust with its own complications. A variation cannot be undone, so take advice before signing anything.