Heirs in UK Law

Subject to the court's powers under the Act and to fiscal demands, an Englishman still remains at liberty at his death to dispose of his own property in whatever way he pleases… In order to enable the court to interfere with and reform those dispositions it must, in my judgment, be shown not that the deceased acted unreasonably, but that looked at objectively, his … lack of disposition produces an unreasonable result in that it does not make any … provision for the applicant —and that means, in the case of an applicant other than a spouse for that applicant's maintenance."

The concept of maintenance is no doubt broad, but the distinction made by the differing paragraphs of section 1(2) shows that it cannot extend to any or every thing which it would be desirable for the claimant to have. It must import provision to meet the everyday expenses of living. The summary of Browne-Wilkinson J in In re Dennis, deceased [1981] 2 All ER 140 at 145–146 is helpful and has often been cited with approval:

In an application under the 1975 Act, however, the figure resulting from the section 25 exercise is merely one of the factors to which the court is to "have regard" and the overriding consideration is what is "reasonable" in all the circumstances. It is, however, obviously a very important consideration and one which the statute goes out of its way to bring to the court's attention.

From the judgments of this Court in re Coventry to the present day, it should be clear that no gloss has been put upon subsection (d). An adult child is, consequently, in no different position from any other applicant who has to prove his case. If the applicant is of working age, with a job or capable of obtaining a job which would be available, the factors in favour of his claim for financial provision may not be of much weight in the scales.

In the former it is such financial provision as it would be reasonable in all the circumstances of the case for a husband or wife to receive whether or not it is required for his or her maintenance.

Even so I do not think that in a case of this character an appellant can succeed in this court merely by showing (assuming that he can show) that this or that figure is erroneous, or this or that calculation is inaccurate. In what is essentially a jury question the over-all picture is what matters. It is the wood that has to be looked at, and not the individual trees.

A key feature of the concept of mutual wills is the irrevocability of the mutual intentions. The test must always be, 'Suppose that during the lifetime of the surviving testator the intended beneficiary did something which the survivor regarded as unpardonable, would he or she be free not to leave the combined estate to him?' The answer must be that the survivor is so entitled unless the testators agreed otherwise when they executed their wills.