In Brief
- The High Court in Thirsk v Thirsk considered the Supreme Court's Standish framework on matrimonial and non-matrimonial property in the context of a 1975 Act claim, applying it within the divorce cross-check for Inheritance Act claims brought by surviving spouses under section 3(2) of the 1975 Act.
- A nineteen-year relationship, of which the formal marriage lasted just over a year, still failed to matrimonialise assets the deceased held before the relationship began, which remained entirely outside any sharing entitlement.
- Assets built up during the relationship were only between one half and two thirds matrimonialised. The deceased had made repeated statements that the claimant had not contributed to his wealth, showing that a testator's own intentions are relevant, but not decisive against contrary conduct.
- Although the will was found not to make reasonable financial provision, the court ultimately awarded a sum close to what the estate (through the deceased's son) had already offered, well short of the claimant's capitalised claim of around £16,000,000.
- The judgment signals a widening gap between needs assessments on divorce and on death.
The High Court recently handed down judgment in Thirsk v Thirsk & Ors, a claim brought by a surviving spouse under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 ("the 1975 Act") against her late husband's substantial farming and hospitality estate. The judgment is the first significant illustration of the Court considering the Supreme Court's decision in Standish v Standish on matrimonial and non-matrimonial property in the context of a 1975 Act claim, applying it within the statutory cross-check to a notional divorce outcome under section 3(2), namely having regard to what an applicant might have been expected to receive if the marriage had been terminated by divorce, instead of terminated by death. For those advising executors, trustees, and beneficiaries in contested estates, Cusworth J's judgment shows how family-derived and pre-relationship wealth is treated when a surviving spouse brings a 1975 Act claim.
Background of the case
The deceased was a Yorkshire farmer who had inherited substantial landholdings in 1984, before he met the claimant. Their relationship began in 2002 and they began cohabiting in around 2003; although they did not marry until 30 March 2021. The deceased died the following year on 20 April 2022. His will, executed in February 2022, gave the claimant a right to occupy the matrimonial home for life, conditional on her not remarrying or cohabiting, together with a tax-free legacy of £5 million and a choice of two cars, with the residue of an estate valued at over £26 million passing to his son (and co-executor) from a previous relationship.
The claimant brought a claim under the 1975 Act, arguing this failed to reflect what she would have received on divorce, and sought a capitalised award of around £16 million. Both parties accepted that the pre-marital cohabitation formed part of the marital relationship, producing an effective relationship length of around nineteen years, against a formal marriage of little more than one.
The Court's decision
A claim by a spouse under the 1975 Act is not limited to maintenance and is determined as such financial provision as it would be reasonable to receive, whether or not required for maintenance (as detailed in section 1(2) of the 1975 Act). A claimant, spouse or otherwise, must however provide details of their purported financial needs and resources (section 3(1)(a) of the 1975 Act).
Cusworth J held that the will did not make reasonable financial provision: a life interest in the home, forfeited if the claimant cohabited with anyone else, could not be reasonable after a relationship treated as lasting nineteen years. However, having constructed the notional divorce outcome required by section 3(2), the judge found that the son's own open offer, an outright transfer of the farmhouse plus a £5 million lump sum and accrued interest, already exceeded the threshold for reasonable provision, and declined to award anything close to the sum sought by the claimant.
Applying Standish within the 1975 Act cross-check
For contentious probate practitioners, the Court's treatment of the section 3(2) cross-check is key. Cusworth J applied the Standish framework on matrimonial and non-matrimonial property, including "matrimonialisation", a doctrine developed within family law, making the assets open to sharing. Assets the deceased held before the relationship began, valued at around £9.1 million, remained entirely non-matrimonial: they stayed in his sole name throughout, with no evidence he ever intended to share them. Assets acquired during the relationship, valued at around £20.4 million and funded substantially from that pre-relationship land, were treated differently: the judge found between one half and two thirds of their value had become matrimonialised through the parties' dealings with those assets over time. This more measured, partial approach to matrimonialisation can be contrasted with the recent decision in TP v TF [2026] EWFC 210, where, on a long marriage, the Family Court found that a pre-marital shareholding had become matrimonialised in its entirety, both because the matrimonial property subsequently accumulated around it diluted the significance of the original non-matrimonial contribution, and because the two had become so mingled over time that the non-matrimonial element could no longer be reliably separated out. Read together, the two decisions illustrate that matrimonialisation remains a question of degree, and that the same doctrine can produce a wide range of outcomes.
What the Thirsk judgment leaves open, and what matters most for succession planning around wealth built up over a long relationship, is how far an asset-holder's own contemporaneous intentions can override decades of shared enjoyment of an asset's proceeds. The deceased had told his solicitors that the claimant had not contributed to his wealth, and that he wished his farming business to pass to his son. The court accepted that evidence, yet still found significant matrimonialisation, illustrating that a testator's stated intention, however clearly recorded, is relevant but not determinative where the parties' conduct points the other way.
Needs, duration, and death rather than divorce
Turning to needs, Cusworth J accepted that a Financial Remedy Court would likely now capitalise needs over twenty years on divorce, reflecting the move away from whole-of-life Duxbury calculations recommended by the Duxbury Working Party's 2025 report. He held, given the length of the relationship, the claimant's age and the age difference between the claimant and deceased, however, that a longer, thirty-year period was appropriate in the 1975 Act context specifically because the relationship ended through death rather than separation, reviving reasoning that has historically supported more generous lifetime provision for a surviving spouse than a divorcing one might expect. This is not least as there is only one party to the marriage whose needs need to be met.
Implications for estate planning and will disputes
Thirsk is significant for anyone advising on succession planning where wealth pre-dates a relationship, whether agricultural land, a family business, or other inherited assets. Testators, and those advising them, should not assume that keeping an asset in a sole name, or recording a clear intention as to its destination, will necessarily prevent a court finding that some or all of its value has become matrimonialised by the time of a 1975 Act claim, particularly where its proceeds have funded the couple's shared life. At the same time, a testator's contemporaneously recorded intentions remain a powerful anchor for what a court will regard as reasonable provision, underlining the evidential value, in any will dispute, of solicitor correspondence recording a client's wishes, including where those wishes evolve close to death.
Conclusion
Thirsk v Thirsk provides helpful clarity on how the section 3(2) cross-check should now be constructed following Standish, and on the continuing, if not determinative, relevance of a deceased's own intentions. It confirms that a lengthy relationship does not automatically matrimonialise pre-relationship or inherited wealth, and that clear evidence of a testator's contrary intention will not necessarily prevent a finding of matrimonialisation where conduct suggests otherwise. Most significantly for those advising in the contentious trusts and estates space, the decision opens a widening gap between the treatment of needs on divorce and on death. This is an area to watch closely as the courts continue to apply Standish outside a family law context.