What This Guide Covers
- The Government’s proposed reform to give cohabiting partners inheritance rights
- Why current intestacy rules leave long-term partners with no automatic claim
- What it could mean if you’re already administering an estate
- What to do if a cohabiting partner is still living in the property
If you’re currently administering an estate, there’s a proposed change working its way through Government that could affect who has a claim on the property you’re trying to sell — and it has nothing to do with a will.
On 5 June 2026, the Ministry of Justice launched a consultation called “A Fairer End to Relationships.” It closed on 14 August 2026, and it proposes something that hasn’t existed in English and Welsh law before: a statutory route for unmarried, cohabiting partners to automatically inherit when their partner dies without a valid will.
The Gap in the Current Rules
Right now, if someone dies without a will, the intestacy rules decide who inherits — and those rules only recognise spouses, civil partners, and blood relatives. A partner you’ve lived with for twenty years has no legal claim under intestacy today, however long the relationship, however much they contributed to a home. We see the human cost of this gap regularly: a surviving partner facing the loss of a house they’ve lived in for decades, with no automatic legal right to stay or to inherit any share of it.
The consultation proposes closing that gap. Cohabitants who meet a qualifying test — provisionally, living together for at least three consecutive years, or having a child together — would gain intestacy rights, meaning they could automatically inherit if their partner dies without a will. The Government’s preferred approach ties this to what it calls a relationship of “marriage-equivalence,” rather than opening it to any live-in arrangement.
What “Marriage-Equivalent” Might Mean in Practice
This detail matters enormously for how an estate gets administered. If the reform proceeds broadly as proposed, a surviving cohabitant could move from having no automatic claim to standing alongside — or ahead of — other relatives in the order of intestate succession, depending on how the final rules are drafted. Nothing is law yet. But the direction of travel is clear enough that any executor currently dealing with, or expecting to deal with, an estate involving a cohabiting couple should be paying attention.
What This Means If You’re Already Administering an Estate
For most people reading this, the person who died already had a will, and this reform won’t touch your situation directly. But it becomes highly relevant in two common scenarios we see constantly in probate property sales.
There’s no will, and the deceased had a long-term partner they never married. Under today’s rules, that partner has no automatic entitlement, however unfair that might feel to the family. If reform passes in anything like its current form, that could change — and estates currently being wound up on the assumption that a cohabiting partner has no claim may need to be revisited once the law takes effect.
A cohabiting partner is still living in the property you’re trying to sell. This is one of the most common complications we’re asked to help with. Even without a change in the law, a surviving partner with nowhere else to go creates a practical and often emotional obstacle to a straightforward sale. If that partner gains a statutory right to a share of the estate on top of that, the property may need to be handled very differently — potentially requiring their agreement, or a buyout of their interest, before any sale can complete.
What Executors Should Do Now
Nothing here should be acted on as if it’s already law — a consultation closing is only the start of the process, and the Government has not confirmed a timetable for implementing legislation. But three things are worth doing today if this situation applies to you.
Get proper legal advice early if you know there’s a cohabiting partner involved, rather than waiting to see what the final rules say. Keep clear records of who has been living in the property, since when, and on what basis — this is exactly the kind of detail that matters if a dispute or a claim arises later. And if the property is standing empty or under-insured while these questions get resolved, deal with that risk immediately; cover can lapse within 30-60 days of a property becoming unoccupied, reform or no reform.
We buy probate properties directly, including estates that are complicated by exactly this kind of situation — a cohabiting partner still in residence, an estate with more than one interested party, or a sale that needs to happen quickly while the legal position is still being worked out. If you’re dealing with any of this, a conversation costs nothing and there’s no obligation.