Six Months From the Grant to Bring an Inheritance Act Claim

If you were left out of the will and you depended on him financially, you normally have six months to make a claim — and, crucially, that six months runs from the date the grant is issued, not from the date he died. This is one of the most misunderstood deadlines in the whole of estate law, and getting the start date wrong is how people talk themselves out of a claim they could still bring, or miss one they thought they had time for.

The claim itself is not really a challenge to the will in the usual sense. You are not saying the will is invalid or that he was talked into it. You are saying that whatever the will does, it fails to make reasonable financial provision for someone who was dependent on him. That is a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, and it is a separate thing from disputing how the will was made.

Because the deadline is short and the start date is easy to misjudge, the practical advice is the same for almost everyone in this position: work out when the grant was taken out, treat six months from that date as a hard line, and take legal advice quickly rather than waiting to see how the estate settles.

The short answer: six months from the grant, not the death

The clock does not start when someone dies. It starts when the grant of representation — the grant of probate where there is a will, or letters of administration where there is not — is issued. From that date you have six months to bring a claim to the court.

This matters in both directions. If the death was many months ago but no grant has been taken out yet, your six months has not even begun, and you may have more time than you feared. If the grant was issued recently, the clock is already running regardless of how long ago the death was. The date on the grant is the date that counts, so the first thing to establish is whether a grant has been issued and, if so, when.

You can check whether a grant has been issued through the probate records, which are public once a grant is made. Until one exists, no one has the formal authority to distribute the estate anyway — the same authority gap that affects whether a joint account passes straight to the survivor and everything else about reaching a deceased person's money before probate.

Why the deadline is structured this way

The logic is that a claim is about the distribution of the estate, and the estate cannot properly be distributed until someone has the authority to do it. That authority is the grant. So the law ties the claim window to the moment distribution becomes possible, rather than to the death, which may precede the grant by a long time.

It also gives claimants a fair run. Working out that you have been left out, or left with too little, often takes time — you may not see the will immediately, and the size of the estate may not be clear for months. Anchoring the deadline to the grant means the window opens once there is actually something concrete to claim against.

The Act itself sets the period, and the court's power to allow a late claim, in statute.

Source: Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, sections 1 to 4, legislation.gov.uk, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Who can actually bring a claim

Not everyone who feels hard done by can claim. The Act sets out a closed list of categories, and you have to fall within one of them. They are, in broad terms:

• A spouse or civil partner of the person who died.
• A former spouse or civil partner who has not remarried or formed a new civil partnership — though a financial order made on divorce may bar this.
• A child of the deceased, of any age. An adult son or daughter is not excluded simply for being grown up, though maintenance has to be shown.
• Someone treated as a child of the family — for example a stepchild the deceased brought up, whether or not there was a formal adoption.
• A cohabiting partner who lived with the deceased as a spouse or civil partner for at least two years ending immediately before the death.
• Anyone the deceased was maintaining immediately before death — someone the deceased was supporting financially, wholly or in part, otherwise than for full value.

The last two categories are where dependants who were never married to the deceased find their footing. A partner who lived with someone for years but never married them, and who has no automatic right under the will or the intestacy rules, may still claim as a cohabitant or as someone being maintained. This is the route that matters most for unmarried couples, who otherwise inherit nothing automatically.

That vulnerability is also the strongest argument for arranging cover in advance rather than relying on a claim after the event. Where someone depends on you financially and would not inherit automatically — an unmarried partner, most obviously — a life insurance policy written in trust can provide for them directly, paying out to them outside the will and the estate, so they are never forced to bring an Inheritance Act claim against grieving relatives simply to be looked after. If that describes your household, you can get life insurance quotes and ask an FCA-authorised broker about writing the policy in trust so the money reaches the person who needs it without passing through the estate at all.

What the court can actually award

The claim is for "reasonable financial provision," and the standard the court applies depends on who is claiming.

A surviving spouse or civil partner is judged by the higher standard: what it would be reasonable for them to receive in all the circumstances, whether or not it is needed for their maintenance. That can reach well beyond subsistence. Everyone else — children, cohabitants, dependants — is judged by the maintenance standard: what they reasonably need to live on, not a share of the estate for its own sake.

The court weighs the claimant's financial needs and resources, the needs of the beneficiaries named in the will, the size of the estate, any obligations the deceased had towards the claimant, and any disability, among other factors. It is a broad, fact-sensitive judgement, which is why two superficially similar claims can end very differently and why early legal advice is worth having.

It is worth separating this from other deadlines that run in the background of an estate. A creditor's right to claim what the estate owes runs on its own timetable — see how long a creditor can claim against an estate — and those debts are paid before anyone inherits, which affects how much is left for a provision claim to bite on.

Why executors should hold off distributing

Here is the part that protects both sides. An executor who pays out the estate within six months of the grant, and is then hit by a successful Inheritance Act claim, can find there is nothing left to satisfy the award — and may be personally liable for having distributed too soon.

Because of that, the standard, cautious course is for executors not to distribute until the six-month window has closed, particularly where they know someone might have a claim. Where there is pressure to release money sooner — a dependant who needs it to live on — the answer is usually to take legal advice, consider interim provision, and obtain indemnities, rather than simply paying out and hoping.

This creates real hardship for a dependant who was relying on the deceased's income and now has to wait. If that is you, do not assume there is no help in the meantime. A bereaved partner may qualify for support that bridges the gap, including a period where the usual conditions are relaxed — see the six months with no job-search requirement after a partner dies. The estate being frozen does not mean every door is closed.

Late claims, and when the court bends the rule

The six-month limit is not absolutely fixed. The court has a discretion to allow a claim to be brought out of time, but permission is never guaranteed and it becomes markedly harder to obtain once the estate has been distributed and the beneficiaries have spent or committed the money.

When it decides whether to let a late claim in, the court looks at how promptly the claimant acted once they knew they had a claim, whether negotiations were going on within the time limit, whether the estate has already been distributed, and whether refusing permission would leave the claimant without any other remedy. The safest position by far is to bring the claim inside the six months. Treating the deadline as flexible is how a good claim becomes a lost one.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

This is one area where the law genuinely differs across the UK, so do not assume the 1975 Act applies wherever you are.

The 1975 Act does not extend to Scotland. Scotland instead protects family members through legal rights, which give a spouse, civil partner and children a fixed entitlement to a share of the deceased's moveable estate that a will cannot simply cut out — set out in how legal rights let children claim against a will in Scotland. Separately, a cohabitant in Scotland has a short, strict window to apply to the court after a death, explained in the six-month claim a Scottish cohabitant can make on the home. These are different mechanisms with different deadlines, so Scottish families should not rely on anything written about the 1975 Act.

Northern Ireland has its own equivalent of the 1975 Act, which mirrors much of the English scheme but is a separate piece of legislation with its own detail. The broad shape — a defined list of applicants, a reasonable-provision test, a time limit tied to the grant — is similar, but the exact wording and case law are its own. In all three jurisdictions the message is the same: find out which regime applies to the estate before you count any days.

Frequently asked questions

How long do I have to bring an Inheritance Act claim?

Six months from the date the grant of representation is issued, not from the date of death. If no grant has yet been taken out, the period has not started. The court has a discretion to allow a late claim, but permission is never guaranteed and becomes much harder to obtain once the estate has already been distributed, so treat six months from the grant as a firm deadline.

Who can make a claim?

A spouse or civil partner, a former spouse or civil partner who has not remarried, a child of any age, someone treated as a child of the family, a partner who lived with the deceased as a couple for at least two years immediately before the death, and anyone the deceased was financially maintaining immediately before the death. Unmarried partners usually claim through the cohabitant or the maintenance route, since they inherit nothing automatically.

Should executors distribute before the six months are up?

It is safer not to. An executor who distributes within six months of the grant and then faces a successful claim can be personally exposed, because the money may already be gone. Waiting the period out, or taking legal advice and indemnities where a dependant genuinely needs interim support, is the usual course wherever a claim looks possible.