Disinherit and Exclude People from Your Will
Published / Last Updated on 02/08/2023
It is legal to exclude people from your Will in England and Wales as well as Northern Ireland without restriction with no one having an automatic right to an entitlement from your estate. This differs in Scotland where there are laws known as ‘Legal Rights’ to prevent children or spouses from being disinherited under a Will.
“Intentional Exclusion” Clause
To do this, you should have an “Intentional Exclusion” clause in your Will naming the excluded person and your relationship together with a summary statement as to why the person has been excluded, ideally giving both positive and negative reasons.
Handwritten Clarity Statement
We also suggest you write a separate, handwritten and larger 'clarity statement' giving a little more detail as to the reasons a person has been excluded from your Will. Again, these should not just be negative reasons but also positive reasons to demonstrate that you have given this thought and have valid reasons to exclude someone. This should be kept with your Will but not bound or attached to it.
Positive reasons could be:
- Protecting children’s interests.
- Balancing monetary gifts already made in life to one child and not their sibling(s).
- Reducing inheritance taxes.
- Making it simpler and easier.
- Trying to avoid disputes.
- Making the estate distribution fairer if a loved one or family member has already benefitted from gifts that you made in life.
You should provide clarity statements as there is always the risk of someone contesting a Will as this will help the Court assess the legitimacy of your exclusion.
Who can Contest Your Will?
In England and Wales, this is set out in the Inheritance (Provision for Dependents) Act 1975, in Scotland under the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964 and in Northern Ireland under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) (NI) Order 1979. In general terms, for all countries (although under Scottish law, spouses and children cannot be excluded anyway), in general terms, people that can contest a Will, are as follows:
- Spouse or civil partner.
- Cohabitee that was living with the deceased for at least 2 years before death.
- Children.
- Someone treated as a ‘child of the family’.
- Someone who was financially dependent on the deceased at the time of death.
Our Fees for Wills: Wills & Probate
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