Succession Act 1965 section 121

Dispositions for purpose of disinheriting spouse or children

Section 121 gives the court power to claw back gifts or transfers of property made by a deceased person within three years before death (or later) where those transfers were intended to defeat or reduce the inheritance rights of a surviving spouse, civil partner, or children.

• The section applies to non-commercial transfers of property where beneficial ownership passes to the recipient within three years before the transferor's death, on death, or later — but not to transfers made for full value to a purchaser or to bequests in a will.
• If the court is satisfied the transfer was made to defeat or substantially reduce the share of the spouse or civil partner (whether a legal right share or an intestacy share), or the intestacy share of any child, or to leave any child insufficiently provided for, it can order that the transferred property be treated as part of the deceased's estate.
• The court cannot interfere with a transfer made to the spouse or civil partner on an application by a child of both the transferor and that spouse or civil partner; nor can it interfere with a transfer to a child if the spouse or civil partner consented in writing, was already dead, or would have been excluded from inheriting under section 120.
• If the recipient has sold the property to a purchaser, the section ceases to apply to the property itself and instead applies to whatever the purchaser paid for it; and where a joint tenant survives and acquires full ownership, this is treated as a transfer of the entire property for the purposes of the section.

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