Record surge in challenges to wills as households face inheritance payout delays – with ‘predatory’ late-life marriages, dementia and Covid lockdowns blamed
There has been a record surge in challenges made to wills, meaning families are experiencing unprecedented levels of delays on inheritance payouts.
‘Predatory’ late-life marriages, dementia and Covid lockdowns have been blamed for the delays by top law firm Birketts.
Inheritance is a contentious issue in the UK, as a report found that the country’s inheritance tax is ‘among the highest in the world’ last month, meaning the delays are especially problematic.
Since 2010, there has been a 4.59 per cent average year-on-year growth of caveats – typically the first step in challenging a will and which prevent executors from getting probate, halting inheritance payouts.
This reached a peak in 2024 with 11,363 caveats according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Probate Registry submitted by Birketts and supplied exclusively to the Daily Mail.
An increase in ‘predatory’ marriages – where younger people exploit vulnerable old people with a view to carving up their fortunes at their death – has meant that challenges by surviving relatives have gone up in retaliation.
Current inheritance laws allow married couples and civil partners to inherit each other’s estate without paying any tax.
Unmarried couples are hit with inheritance tax at 40 per cent on any assets over £325,000. Tying the knot is a loophole around this tax, but it can also blindside other relatives and lead to further will disputes.
Barny Croft, Partner in Birketts’ private wealth disputes team, blamed complex family structures from unorthodox marriages, dementia and Covid as some factors of the delays
The number of second and third marriages later in life has also risen significantly, which creates more difficulty when arbitrating a will between new partners and children from separate relationships.
More than a third of all marriages in the UK are now second marriages, according to Evolve Family Law.
Meanwhile, Deathbed marriages have skyrocketed in recent years with 836 in the 12 months up to the end of June 2025. That’s a whopping 49 per cent increase on the decade before, which saw 561 licences handed out between June 2014 and June 2015.
Barny Croft, Partner in Birketts’ private wealth disputes team, said: ‘The generational wealth gap is certainly playing a part in the rise in will disputes but there are many factors at play: an ageing population, increased life expectancy, more people living with dementia, complex family structures, high-value assets, badly drafted wills, and an increasing number of bad lawyers encouraging people to pursue lousy cases, are just some of them.’
Birketts said it had to more than double the size of its wealth disputes team which they said reflects a wider change in the legal landscape because of these emerging social problems.
Dementia is another important factor in many will disputes, with now more than 19 per cent of the UK’s ageing population being 65 or over.
‘The implications for testamentary capacity and susceptibility to influence are significant,’ a Birketts spokesperson said.
‘The increased prevalence of dementia – age being its greatest risk factor – means more Wills are being challenged on the grounds of capacity or undue influence.’
A more immediate factor in this rise has been the legacy of the Covid lockdowns, the law firm said.
This was most evidenced by the sharp 36.57 per cent rise in caveats filed between 2019 and 2021, revealed in the FOI data.
‘With many unable to meet solicitors face-to-face, there was a surge in homemade Wills and documents prepared without appropriate assessment of capacity or undue influence,’ the spokesperson said.
In the past five years, the average increase year-on-year has also increased to 6.2 per cent and Birketts believes that this will continue to rise, despite a plateau in the data from 2025 when there were 11,328 caveats filed – a slight decrease from the year before.
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) called for inheritance tax to be abolished by Rachel Reeves last month after their report found that the UK’s was one of the harshest in the western world.
The system for the levy – set at 40 per cent for assets above the value of £325,000 in the UK – has been branded ‘far more punishing than headline comparisons suggest’.
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank said the tax should be scrapped because it ‘imposes heavy costs on families’ and ‘deters saving and investment’.
Have you involved in a family will dispute? Get in touch: [email protected]
