Does an unmarried partner inherit if there is no will?

This is one of the harshest corners of English law. The intestacy rules — which decide who inherits when someone dies without a valid will — recognise spouses, civil partners, and blood relatives. They do not recognise cohabitants. Twenty years together, a shared mortgage, children in common: none of it gives a surviving unmarried partner any automatic entitlement.

Who does inherit under intestacy

• A surviving spouse or civil partner takes the first £322,000 (the statutory legacy), all personal possessions, and half of anything above that; the children share the other half.
• With no spouse, the estate passes down a strict hierarchy: children, then parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles — and ultimately the Crown.
• Stepchildren are also excluded unless legally adopted.

So if your partner dies intestate, their estate goes to their relatives — potentially parents or siblings they were estranged from — while you receive nothing, even from the home you shared if it was in their sole name. (Jointly owned property held as joint tenants passes by survivorship, which is one of the few automatic protections cohabitants can build in.)

The fallback: an Inheritance Act claim

A surviving cohabitant can apply to the court under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 for reasonable financial provision — typically requiring you to show you lived with the deceased and were maintained by them. Claims can succeed, but they are uncertain, stressful, and expensive, and they are subject to a strict six-month window from the grant of probate — check yours with our Inheritance Act claim window calculator.

The dependable answer is prevention: both partners should make wills. A simple solicitor-drafted will costs £150–£400 — a trivial price compared with litigating against your partner's family while grieving.