Sarah Jane Thirsk v Henry Stamford Thirsk & Ors

This matter has come before me as the final hearing of Claimant’s application pursuant to the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (the ‘1975 Act’) for reasonable financial provision from the estate of Henry Stamford Thirsk (the ‘Deceased’). The Claimant is the Deceased’s surviving spouse. They married on 30 March 2021, and the deceased sadly died on 20 April 2022. The Claimant and the Deceased had cohabited from some point in or around 2003, and both the active parties to the application acknowledge that the substantial period of prior cohabitation should be classed as a part of the marital relationship. The First Defendant is the Deceased’s only child from a previous relationship. The Second Defendant was the Deceased’s accountant, and he is joined in his capacity as one of the three executors of the Deceased’s estate. He adopts a neutral stance in respect of the claim. The Third Defendant is a bank which no longer has any active role in these proceedings.

I have heard this matter over three days sitting in the Business and Property Courts at Leeds, between 5 and 7 May 2026. The Claimant has been represented by Mr Learmonth KC and Ms Webster, the First Defendant by Ms Reed KC and Mr Rees. I have heard oral evidence from the Claimant, from the First Defendant, and from Ellen Herd, formerly the office manager for the Deceased, and now acting in the same role for the First Defendant, on whose behalf she gave evidence. I have read witness statements from the Second Defendant, and from 2 witnesses for the Claimant who in the event were not called to give oral evidence.

The History. The Deceased was born in 1947. In 1984, he inherited a farm from his father. On 21 April 1990 the First Defendant was born – he is now 36. His mother and the Deceased were never married, but lived together until the late 1990s, when their relationship ended. The First Defendant then split his time between his parents’ homes. In 2002, the Deceased, then in his mid-fifties, and the Claimant started a relationship, and although there is a disagreement about precisely when this developed into full cohabitation, it appears to have been most probably at some time during 2003. The claimant is now 47 years old, and so would have been under 25 when the cohabitation began.

The Deceased is described by his son, the First Defendant, as a farmer. In 1984 as explained he inherited acres of land around Pocklington, North Yorkshire, from his father, along with the farming business known as ‘H Thirsk & Son’. The will of the Deceased’s father dated 13 July 1983 refers to around 183 acres of land to be directly inherited by the Deceased as a specific legacy, including Groves Farm, then a working farm with a farmhouse in which he lived. The Deceased was also granted an option to purchase any further freehold property farmed by the farming partnership if not otherwise disposed of by the will. The Deceased later exercised that option to acquire several hundred more acres of land around Pocklington.

From 1983 to 1990, land sales generated £870,000. In that period further land was purchased at Shiptonthorpe for £159,000. In 1988/89 a new local plan was put into place for Pocklington and the surrounding area which gave rise to significant development potential in respect of the Deceased’s land. Between December 1990 and March 2001, land sales produced £5,460,270. Land purchases totalled £1,904,364. This would become the pattern of how the Deceased and his agents would manage his inheritance. On 28 July 1998 the Deceased became a director of Broadvale Developments Limited (‘Broadvale’), a property development company through which certain land held by him was to be redeveloped. The proceeds were partly reinvested in land purchases, including 160 acres in Burnby purchased in 2000, and in developing the farming business, as well as purchasing the Feathers Hotel in Pocklington as a hospitality venture for £885,000 in 2001, shortly before the Deceased’s relationship with the Claimant began. The next land sale was of Whitefields Farm in October 2004 for £360,313. There was then reduced sales activity for some years, with sales from then until June 2011 totalling only a further £694,370.

The Deceased had therefore, I accept, received a significant amount from the sale of land before he met the Claimant, and had reinvested a considerable portion, including purchasing land which is now within the Feathers partnership. He had also established the pattern by which he would generate profits from his land during subsequent years. The Deceased and the Claimant initially lived at Groves Farm, where they stayed for around nine years. Although they were not then married, their subsequent marriage has rendered this property a home of the matrimonial relationship. After a couple of years of cohabitation, the Claimant gave up her job as a travel consultant, she says at the Deceased’s request. It is accepted that she has not worked outside of the home since. There are no children of the marriage.

The Deceased developed the Feathers, which he had purchased in 2002, extending it from being a pub with rooms to a properly constituted hotel by the addition of new chalet accommodation in 2003, at the very outset of his relationship with the Claimant, and then added a function area and dining room in 2006, a first accommodation block extension in 2007, and a second in 2017. In November 2010, the Oddfellows Arms was purchased for £179,422, the first such purchase during the marital relationship. In 2012, the Deceased converted this into ‘Stamford’s Grill’ to add to his hospitality business, and he later spent money renovating the property. An outbuilding was converted for function and conference facilities in 2015, and more accommodation was added. The deceased spent £167,976 on renovations to Stamford’s Grill in 2016, and another £781,152 on a new accommodation block at the Feathers in 2018.

In 2012, the ‘East Riding Local Plan 2012-2029’ proposed changes to Council development policy, and this was eventually adopted in 2016. The Deceased and his agents, J.G.Hatcliffe & Partners, took advantage of this by the latter’s applying for and obtaining planning permission for development of Groves Farm. The sale of land then gained pace from May 2013, and up to 2021, further planning permissions were obtained, and Groves Farm and neighbouring land at Burnby Lane were sold for residential development in phases. Groves Farm is now an estate of 200 houses, with a GP surgery and more. The Deceased obtained planning approval for a further five dwellings at Groves Farm in 2018, before selling them in August 2020.

I accept that the land sold for development during the marital relationship has comprised the majority of what the Deceased owned before that relationship began. Some of the capital proceeds were spent by the Deceased and the Claimant over time, and some were invested in improving his other land and acquiring more. In December 2014, the Deceased bought Glebe Farm, a 4-bedroom property in Everingham, together with surrounding land, for £1,985,572. The farmland surrounding Glebe Farmhouse was then added to in June 2016. The house and land are now valued at £2,519,000, and the Farmhouse remains the Claimant’s home. Wold View Farm at Bolton was purchased in February 2015 for £435,000. Woodlands Farm was purchased in November 2016 for £851,788. After purchasing that farm the Deceased spent significant sums on erecting new pig sheds, for £528,559. Merton House Farm was bought in July 2017 for £918,500, and this is the First Defendant’s current home. Little Groves was then purchased in February 2020 for £330,000.

For the most part, it is the Claimant’s case that the Deceased did not actively farm these himself, but provided ‘bed-and-breakfast’ facilities for others’ herds of pigs. She explains that he developed and improved these farms, adding extensive farm buildings, at substantial cost. The Deceased also added improvements to the farms that he inherited and still retains. Whilst the Deceased inherited some farmland at Bungalow Farm, the farmhouse and buildings were purchased later on, in January 2016. He further expanded that farm by 48.5 acres in July 2018, and also spent significant sums improving the buildings and resurfacing a road. Between 2018 to 2021 he spent £209,000 on an office, cattle sheds, a grain store, and tractor shed. Little Grange Farm has become what the Claimant describes as a ‘conglomeration of crop storage barns, weighbridge, and grain drying facility together with pig farms’ compared to the bed and breakfast pig farm it had been at the outset of their relationship. However, it always remained the case that none of this would have been possible without the estate that the Deceased brought into the relationship, and the external factor of planning changes that paved the way for all of the progress made.

Between 2013 and 2021, the sale of the land around Groves Farm alone, in four phases, resulted in proceeds of £25,235,491. A further £530,000 was then received for the Groves farmhouse, and £450,000 for another parcel. A total of £26,215,491. Significant land purchases were also made, including that of Glebe Farm. Over the same 8-year period, these purchases totalled £12,196,723. And whilst the lands held were developed and improved, it is clear too that the Deceased had a firm view that he wished to be able to hand on to the First Defendant viable farming and hospitality businesses.

On 2 February 2022 the Deceased executed a will, whichprovides as follows:

The Deceased died as explained on 20 April 2022. A grant of probate was obtained by the Claimant, the First Defendant and the Second Defendant in respect of the Deceased’s estate on 30 August 2024. The unfortunate circumstances of his death, by accident, do not affect the outcome of this application. The 2022 Will was varied by a Deed of Variation on 19 April 2024 to clarify the Claimant’s right of residence in Glebe Farm (which then appeared to be a partnership asset).

The assets. Updated estate accounts for the deceased’s estate show that the net estate is valued at £26,305.210.97, after removing administration expenses and a small valuation adjustment. The net assets valued on the appended schedule total £28,341,613.23. The majority of this comprises land, included in the accounts as being part of the value of the deceased’s share in the farming partnership. It is acknowledged that the solicitors acting for the executors in the administration of the estate had been told by the First and Second Defendants that, under the partnership agreement for the farming business dated 5 June 2019, the Deceased had put the farmland in trust for the partnership. Subsequently, the files behind the making of the partnership agreement demonstrated that the partnership agreement in fact specifically provided that the land farmed by the partnership remained in the legal and beneficial ownership of the Deceased. It has now been acknowledged by the First Defendant that the land now remains in the legal and beneficial ownership of the estate.

I invited counsel to separate out those properties currently held in the estate which pre-dated the start of the parties’ relationship, and those that were acquired later. Here, gratifyingly, counsel were not so far apart, disagreeing substantively only in relation to the proportions of pre- and post-relationship ownership which were to be ascribed to two of the properties: in relation to the Feathers Hotel because of the additional building added to the plot in 2016; and in relation to the other plot, Bungalow Farm, because of the addition of further land and a farm building as described above. Further, the value in the shares in Broadvale, omitted by the First Defendant, was ascribed by the Claimant to the post-relationship acquisition period, although actually acquired beforehand. Having considered the rival contentions in relation to all of these issues, I have preferred the Claimant’s arguments in relation to both plots, and in relation to Broadvale, where the value now evident I accept has been generated predominantly during the relationship, and I will therefore work from the figures provided on her behalf.

On this basis, including the value of the Deceased’s business interests but before adding any pension values or the assets now held by the Claimant, the total net value of the currently held assets, before the deduction of estate charges and other debts, comes to £30,669,780, of which some £9,127,734 can be accounted as having been held by the deceased before the beginning of the relationship. The rest, totalling some £20,366,730, were acquired later; but it must always be remembered that all of the funding to enable those acquisitions has come originally from the sale of property either inherited by the deceased, or acquired by him for value prior to the beginning of his relationship with the Claimant. I will deal with his involvement in those transactions, what I can glean of his intentions, and the extent to which those funds introduced should consequently be treated as having been matrimonialised for the purposes of considering the value of the Claimant’s sharing entitlement had there been a divorce, later.

Lifestyle in the marriage. The Claimant contends that the parties lived very well in the latter years of their relationship, and in the year following their marriage. The schedule of marital expenditure that she appended to her first statement in the proceedings, dated 3 January 2024, came to some £731,142pa, of which nearly half was said to have been incurred in shooting costs (£350,000pa). It is evident that shooting was the Deceased’s favourite pastime, and that he would spend up to 5 days per week shooting during the six months of the shooting season. Her figures claimed for shooting for herself going forward were put in that statement at £120,000pa, or 40 days per year, plus a further £37,600pa for clothing and additional costs.

The Claimant then stated that she and the Deceased ‘loved to travel’, and she claimed at that point £58,500pa for annual holiday costs, stating that she ‘was used’ to expenditure of £42,000pa on 2 long-haul holidays per annum, as well as ‘expecting’ a further 2 or 3 week-long trips to Europe costing £16,500. She only however sought the latter figure going forward. She added that she and the Deceased would eat out almost every day, and claimed £15,600pa to eat out three times per week. As to household expenditure, she estimated £32,000pa for the costs of repairs, utilities and maintenance at Glebe Farm, with a further £8,000pcm – £96,000pa – for other household expenditure during the relationship spent on her credit card. She sought a total of £88,500pa going forward under this head. She explained that the deceased owned seven valuable cars, and put the costs of running three of them at £34,800pa. These were a Rolls-Royce Dawn (£165,000) given to her by the Deceased, and the Rolls-Royce Cullinan valued at £370,000 and the Range Rover (£130,000) which she received under the Deceased’s will. In addition, she explained that the Deceased had bought her a private plane (a Piper Saratoga – £194,000), which required a further £33,292pa to hangar, fuel and service. She finally added £40,000pa for clothes and £10,000pa for gifts to bring the final tally of her claim to £376,617pa, or around half of what she had described as the marital level of expenditure.

In her recent statement dated 15 April 2026, the Claimant updated her position, and she sought to explain that she was now in a better position to estimate her living costs going forward. Her figures for household expenditure and food had come down a little, but were still at £57,600pa for food and cleaning products, and £49,227pa for the rest. Explaining that the Deceased wanted her to lead a life which included the use of her plane she increased the maintenance costs for that to £43,664pa. Shooting costs were however adjusted down to £70,220pa, on the basis that this would take place only on 19 days per year. Eating out was now claimed for five times per week, plus six annual occasions when she would buy a meal for 6 friends (a total of 22 meals out a month), and with other entertainment, the total cost for these items was put at £16,886pa. Holidays were increased to £51,000pa, made up of £30,000 for 2 weeks per annum abroad in a rented villa, and £21,000 for 6 other weeks away during the year, including spending money. She then added a claim for £26,544pa for clothes and jewellery on the basis of her spending in the preceding two months. The total sought before a final head thus came to £378,810pa – which was in fact almost exactly the same as the total sum claimed in her earlier budget.

Finally, however, she added capital replacement costs annualised over 5 years, for the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, for the Range Rover and for the plane, plus for a newly claimed ride on mower and a ‘mule’ vehicle for transporting garden equipment, at an additional annual cost of some £166,800. This brought her claim then to £545,610pa. At trial, she reamended these figures, by accounting for the trade-in value of the cars and the plane in her depreciation calculations, which served to bring the total claim down to £480,510pa. In her final statement she explained:

Trying to determine the actual standard of living of the Claimant and of the Deceased in the later years of their relationship and marriage has not been a straightforward task in those circumstances. This has been especially complicated by the fact that from 2018, the couple opened a joint account through which they put a variety of expenditure, including one off capital items like new cars, and a lot of shooting expenditure, as well as cash withdrawals and more mundane items. Additionally, there are records of the Deceased’s cash, credit card and other personal drawings from the business, which go right back through the relationship. The Claimant’s own credit card statements for the year of the marriage, up to March 2022, show expenditure of just over £6,000pcm on average, funded by the Deceased.

Once the joint account was opened, significant amounts were transferred to it, but some drawings on the business continued. These included the bulk of shooting costs, and significant but fluctuating obligations to HMRC for tax. In the earlier years of the relationship, the drawings were more modest, never exceeding £100,000pa net, excluding the very significant shooting costs always incurred. From 2014/15, there was an increase, such that for the four years before the opening of the joint account the average combined cash and other net drawings from the business came to £181,025 annually, without shooting or identifiable capital expenditure. Once the joint account was in operation there appears to have been another increase. I do not have complete records for 2018/9, but for 2019/20, averaging around one missing statement, the combined cash, drawings and joint account spend, removing again capital items such as new cars and obvious shoot spending, and including cash withdrawals, seems to have been £281,781.74, or £23,482pcm. Passing over the atypical COVID year, the year 2021/2, following the parties’ marriage and up to the last month before the death of the Deceased, shows a spend of £258,758.73 on the same basis, or £21,563pcm, for both of them. This would have included the Claimant’s credit card spend identified above. The comparable figure represented in the Claimant’s case would be £308,590pa, that is, her claim without annual capital replacement provision, or shooting costs, and for herself alone.

The oral evidence. The Claimant was not able to provide very much assistance to me in her oral evidence in respect of her needs, save to tell me that almost all of her spending was in cash (the joint account statements appear to show withdrawals at the rate of a little over £1,000pcm), and that she never keeps receipts. She accepted that throughout her relationship with the Deceased, they had only travelled abroad for a long-haul holiday three times, the last of those in 2016. Many of her occasional European breaks were taken with her family and without the Deceased. She stated that most of her eating out was now done at lunch-time, on account of her single status. Her account of regularly paying for parties of six to have a meal, without contribution from them on those occasions, was unconvincing. Those food receipts that were produced showed unexceptional domestic spending. There was no evidence of her buying large quantities of champagne as she asserted, but there was evidence of some less expensive bottles of wine. She produced a number of photographs of wardrobes packed with clothes which she assured me were all hers, and many of which looked hardly used. Generally, she gave the impression of wanting to maximise the amount which the court could find would be a reasonable budget for her, without having given very much thought as to how she might usefully do that. She confirmed that even through the four years since the death of the Deceased and the passage of her claim, she had not thought to try to keep comprehensive records of the rate at which she was living. I of course accept that, in the absence of the balance of her legacy under the will, she has not been able to budget and spend as she would have wanted. I will therefore have to do the best I can with the available material.

As to her case about capital replacement provision, she acknowledged that private planes such as that bought for her by the Deceased will generally last for 50-60 years, and that hers is only about 20 years old. She asserted that she wanted, and that she and the Deceased had planned, to fly more often to Europe, and that she currently flew 30-40 hours per year but wanted to increase that. In relation to the cars, her case is that she wishes to retain the Rolls-Royce Dawn indefinitely, as it as a gift from the Deceased, but that she wishes to be able to replace the Rolls-Royce Cullinan and the Range Rover on a 5 yearly basis. The Claimant said that she drives 25,000 miles a year, pricing the fuel required on the basis that would achieve no more than 15 miles per gallon in her vehicles. She said that she was now used to having the three cars, and that this is what the Deceased had wanted for her. Her case in essence was to seek from the court such sum as enabled her to live the life that she might have been able to live if all of the assertions that she made about the Deceased’s wishes for her were true, even though that might exceed the life that she appears actually to have lived with him.

Most troubling of all was her evidence about the terms of the Deceased’s will, executed by him no more than a few weeks before his unexpected death. She described it as a ‘stop-gap’ designed to hold the ring until a full post-nuptial agreement had been negotiated between them, whereupon she expected that a new will would be made in line with whatever was contained in that agreement. It was clear from the available documentation that the term ‘stop-gap’ was used in discussions, and that there were to be discussions around a post-nuptial settlement. However, there is no indication where those discussions might have ended up, or what any subsequent agreement might have looked like. It is clear that the Deceased told his own advisors prior to his death that he was concerned that the terms of the will that had been drafted might have been too generous, and that he would prefer to reduce the sum provided for the Claimant under its terms to £4,000,000. It is clear too that he was concerned to leave the bulk of his faming business to his son, the First Defendant, and was concerned that land would have to be sold to fund any settlement for the Claimant. There was no evidence that he had understood or embraced the concept of sharing, or given careful thought to the consequences of the application of that doctrine prior to or soon after his marriage to the Claimant in 2021. Whilst that fact will not of course prevent the court from now fully considering the quantum of such claim as the Claimant might have made in the event of divorce, there is no evidence that the Deceased’s own intention was to make greater provision than that contained in the will, or that he thought such would be fair. It is noticeable that he was not proposing that then Claimant should receive Glebe Farm outright, but only the right to occupy it, provided she was not in another cohabiting relationship.

In that context, the Claimant told me that, following on from the first anniversary of their wedding on 30 March 2022, the Deceased had a dramatic change of heart about what he felt would be appropriate provision for her, and that, in the negotiations for the post-nuptial agreement which were to follow, he would have been significantly more generous than had been the case six weeks earlier when the will came to be drawn up, and in his subsequent conversations with his lawyers. Sadly, in the absence of any corroborative evidence to support this account from the Claimant, I am unable to accept it. In circumstances where I am satisfied that in other areas the Claimant has been seeking to maximise the potential value of her claim by exaggeration of her budget and of her and the Deceased’s lifestyle together, she would need to have produced some contemporaneous document or credible witness to such a radical conversion on the Deceased’s behalf, before I could accept her account. Insofar as the Deceased’s intentions and wishes may become relevant in determining the outcome of the claim, I can only safely start from the contents of the will that he signed in February 2022, just weeks before his death.

The First Defendant as I found was a straightforward witness. He became involved in the farm business when he was 17 years old in around 2007. He then studied agriculture at college and took on a full-time role on the farm in 2011, where he has worked since. He continues to work on the farm, and I accept that the businesses are the First Defendant’s livelihood. It must also be acknowledged that he has identified and addressed by his open position the principal weakness in the provision made for the Claimant by the Deceased’s will, namely that he has offered to accede to the outright transfer to her of Glebe Farm, now alongside the cars, and the £5,000,000 legacy offered in the will, and interest. Together with that interest now due this would mean that by his proposal the Claimant would receive very nearly £8,500,000, of which the housing element would be an agreed £1.4m, which would be the cost to the Claimant to acquire a suitable alternative property. In fact, Glebe Farm’s net value on the asset schedule is £1.195m, whilst its adjoining land is worth £1.323m.

The Law. Section 1 of the1975 Act provides as follows insofar as material:

Section 3(1) then sets out a number of factors to which the court must have regard in considering whether and in what manner to exercise its powers under section 2 (powers broadly in line with the court’s powers to award a financial remedy on divorce under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (‘the MCA 1973’)), as follows:

Section 3(2) provides that if an application is made by virtue of section 1(1)(a) (so by a spouse) then:

S.3(5) and (6) then provide:

The 1975 Act imposes a two-stage test, as explained by Lord Hughes in Ilott v The Blue Cross & Ors [2017] UKSC 17, where he said from [23]: 

The courts have noted that there may be difficulty in applying the divorce cross-check in the context of a claim under the 1975 Act. In Fielden & Anor v Cunliffe [2005] EWCA Civ 1508,Wall LJ said, from [20], that:

Wall LJ further considered this issue, and the impact of a marriage’s duration in a claim under the 1975 Act, from [30] where he said, under the heading ‘White v White and the short marriage point’:

In Lilleyman v Lilleyman [2012] EWHC 821 (Ch), I note also that Briggs J (as he then was) spoke at [45] of the ‘undeniably different circumstances surrounding the termination of a marriage by death, rather than breakdown of the relationship’.

Here, of course, although the marriage lasted for barely more than a year, the period of prior cohabitation must be brought fully into account, so that the marital relationship can be said to have lasted for some 19 years, and the Claimant’s entitlement must certainly be calculated on that basis. However, the fact that this only became a marriage at the end of the relationship may remain a relevant consideration when one is seeking to interpret the Claimant’s and the Deceased’s respective intentions and expectations at different points in the relationship. I will deal with the full consequences of this for the outcome of this case in due course. However, with that background borne fully in mind, the court’s approach to this claim must begin with an assessment of how the Claimant’s entitlement would have been assessed in the circumstances of a divorce, before considering whether other factors may dictate a different outcome to her 1975 Act claim. In that regard, this will require both an assessment of the Claimant’s needs, and an evaluation of the sharing claim to which she would have been entitled.

Sharing. I will start with the principles governing the assessment of the Claimant’s notional sharing entitlement under the provisions of the MCA 1973, and how a Financial Remedy Court might approach the quantification of the matrimonial assets which would consequently inform the calculation of her entitlement. In this regard, the recent case of Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26 in the Supreme Court has made clear beyond doubt the underlying principles to be applied. The first three of those principles can be taken briefly, as set out by Lord Burrows and Lord Stephens:

The court then came to consider the concept of ‘matrimonialisation’ as applied in the Financial Remedy Court, which they explained as follows:

The facts of K v L [2011] EWCA Civ 550 are instructive, and were set out as follows by Wilson LJ (as he then was) in that case, from [5]:

Prior to the decision in Standish, other judges have attempted to provide a satisfactory rationale for the basis upon which they have determined the size of the parties’ respective sharing entitlements. Without always appearing to use identical language or categorisation to that now understood, it is clear that the principles which they have applied have been very much in line with what the Supreme Court have now mandated. For example, Mostyn J in JL v SL (No 2) [2015] EWHC 360 (Fam) said this:

In FS v JS [2006] EWHC 2793 (Fam) – cited above by Mostyn J as S v S (Non-Matrimonial Property: Conduct) – Burton J had dealt with a comparable situation as follows:

Analysing the ratio of these decisions it becomes clear that the judges involved have, in reality, not been dividing properly classed matrimonial assets unequally, but rather determining that some proportion of the assets in question, which have begun outside the marriage, but been employed ‘as part of the economic life of the marriage’, has in fact retained its non-matrimonial character. The size of that proportion will depend on all of the factual circumstances before the court in each case, including where relevant the scale of the non-matrimonial contribution, the extent of the assets’ employment during the marriage, the period of time over which it was employed, and possibly whether and if so to what extent the party introducing the asset intended that the asset be treated as shared. The fact of sharing, of course, might override or reduce the impact of any lack of intention to share, as this may generate a tension between how the parties have in fact treated an asset, and whether either of them intended by that treatment to share the asset. And it will be relevant that in this case, throughout the bulk of the relationship, the parties were not in fact married, so that finding any intention to share over time is more difficult.

Intention nevertheless will usually remain a relevant consideration, if not determinative. So, as with testamentary wishes, it may be overridden if it proves to be at odds with the reality of how an asset has been treated, but it may remain illuminating in considering in all of the circumstances how the court should interpret the ways in which assets have been used during the marital relationship. As to testamentary intention, it is the case that the deceased’s testamentary wishes may be relevant: as held in Ilott v The Blue Cross (above) at [47], they carry weight in some cases, but can be overridden by the 1975 Act. Lord Hughes said:

Sharing in this case. Here, as indicated above, the question of whether there was an intention to treat the assets as shared over time has to be considered through the prism of what is known of the Deceased’s intentions, and how he has in fact treated the assets which he brought into the relationship. On the one hand he has undoubtedly used them to sustain the relationship by sale, development and realisation over many years. On the other hand, he and the Claimant remained unmarried for all but the last year of that relationship. Throughout the earlier period when most of the property assets were realised, and cash released which funded the relationship which would become marital, there is no obvious sign that he intended to share with her the assets that either remained unsold, or were acquired in substitution, other than by his willingness to spend sale proceeds on their shared pastimes and joint living costs. On occasion he brought the Claimant generous presents, such as the Rolls-Royce Dawn, or the Piper aircraft, but no properties were ever acquired in or transferred into joint names.

Indeed, by an earlier will drawn up on 19 March 2019, the Deceased was intending to leave the Claimant with no more than £1,000,000, in addition to the right to live in Glebe Farmhouse until she cohabited. I consider this to be a very clear indication that he did not, prior to their marriage but over 15 years into their relationship, consider that he had to that point taken any steps which constituted a sharing of any of his assets with her. On 4 March 2021, just before their wedding, the Deceased told his solicitors that the Claimant had ‘not contributed to his wealth’. On the same day he stated that if the Claimant would not agree to a Pre-Nuptial Agreement there would be no marriage. On 10 March 2021, his solicitors confirmed to him thatthe Deceased‘had specifically stated that he wanted to look after Sarah Jane but he wanted Harry to inherit from him’. At the point of their wedding a ‘Statement of Intent’ was signed indicating a joint intention to enter into a post-nuptial agreement within 3 months of the wedding. At this stage, on 25 March 2021, the Claimant’s solicitor was indicating that she would not be seeking ‘anywhere near 50% of Henry’s assets.’

After the marriage, the Deceased told his solicitor on 8 July 2021 that he‘Built up the farms for my son to carry on farming.’ Following a meeting with the Claimant and her father the Deceased’s solicitors wrote to him on 18 October 2021, indicating that she had told them at the meeting that she would accept a £5,000,000 legacy, plus the right to live in the house. This was preferred to an alternative of 1/3 of the estate, because the estate’s value had not then been ascertained. On 30 December 2021, the Deceased communicated clearly to his solicitors that he preferred the cash gift to any share of the estate. On 17 February 2022, the Deceased asked his solicitors whether the provision for the Claimant in the will (executed just 15 days earlier) could be reduced from £5,000,000 to £4,000,000. He was clearly worried about the prospect of having to sell ‘a farm or two’ to raise the money, as he wanted ‘to keep them in tact’.

Of course, by the fact of the marriage, the Deceased knew that he was creating a lengthy marital relationship, at any eventual termination of which the Claimant would have a substantial entitlement. I do not consider that that course however can be classed as evidence of his treating the totality of his properties as being shared. This is supported by his apparent dissatisfaction with the amount which he had agreed to make available for the Claimant under the 2022 Will, which amount was not inclusive of any outright property interest, and in a sum which he apparently considered overgenerous. This will was entered into nearly a year after the couple’s marriage. I have as explained rejected the Claimant’s case that before his death the Deceased was exhibiting a much more generous attitude towards her. I am satisfied that the provision under the will was the maximum extent to which he felt that she should be provided for. It is clear that he intended that his son, the First Defendant, should inherit the bulk of his estate and of the assets of the farming partnership, and that he wanted such provision as was to be made for the Claimant to impact on that intention in as limited a way as was conversant with fairness.

That however cannot be the end of this issue, for whatever his subjective intention, I must consider whether objectively the Deceased may by his actions during the relationship have treated the assets in such a way that a consequence of his marriage was to render them, or some element of them, matrimonialised, and so open to sharing. I acknowledge that intention appears to have been a very important element in the Supreme Court’s decision in Standish (above), to the extent that, at [56], the Court made clear that:

So, if the transferring of an asset into the sole name of your spouse without the intention of sharing it will not without more give rise to sharing, how will a court deal with the claim in this case? In K v L (above), part of the wife’s shareholding was sold and dividends used to fund the (albeit modest) family spending, but the Court of Appeal were clear that the shares there retained their non-matrimonial character. However, in FS v JS (above), where property was‘the Respondent's life-blood and expertise’and he was‘an expert in respect of the purchase and sale of properties, and with an obvious eye for substantial increase in value’,Burton J was persuaded that although the assets being traded had been introduced by the husband, they had had only retained their matrimonial character as to 20% of their value. Here, I am not satisfied that the Deceased was an expert in property development to the same extent as was the Respondent in that case. It is clear to me that his primary passions were for shooting, and for the continuation of the farming partnership with his son, and that it was his agents, J.G.Hatcliffe & Partners, who led the process for land sale and the exploitation of development value. In his conversation with his solicitors on 17 February 2022 he described himself as having been ‘a farmer all his life’, and that this was what he had ‘built up all his life’.

However, it remains the case that the series of substantial land sales and purchases which punctuated the marital relationship were the way in which it was sustained financially. I have no doubt that the Deceased was actively and enthusiastically engaged in those transactions, even if frequently elsewhere on shooting excursions, or on farming business. And further, and significantly, it was the case that the bulk of the value generated across those sales was from the sale in various different phases of the land that surrounded Groves Farm, which farm for 9 years was the couple’s home. Whilst I accept Ms Reed KC’s submission that only the Farmhouse itself can probably be considered fully matrimonial by reason of the later marriage, and even given what I have found to have been the Deceased’s absence of any evidenced willingness or intention to share, I do consider that the Claimant will certainly have some significant sharing entitlement in light of this background. The facts demonstrate that the property was in some part being shared in fact, even if the Claimant’s right to share only arose later, and was not acknowledged willingly by the Deceased.

In the circumstances, I am not satisfied that the Claimant has any sharing claim in relation to that part of the estate that is represented by those of the assets which were owned by the Deceased prior to the beginning of the relationship and still retained by him, which I have valued at £9,127,734. These were maintained in the Deceased’s sole name throughout the marriage, and there is no evidence of any intention on his behalf that they should be shared or treated as shared at any point during the relationship.

The rest, valued at £20,366,730, are I consider susceptible to sharing in some part, but I am satisfied that it should not be as to the whole of their value. All of the factors discussed above lead me to conclude that at least half but no more than two thirds of the value of those assets acquired in the relationship with previously inherited or purchased assets can now fairly be considered to have become matrimonialised. This puts the case somewhere between Standish (above,) and K v L (above), where there was no sharing, and FS v JS (above), where 80% of the matrimonial assets were shared. This would make the matrimonial pot somewhere between £10,183,365, and £13,577,820, and the Claimant’s potential half-share of that between £5,091,682 and £6,788,910, before it is then proportionately adjusted to take account of the actual net value of the estate, and to take account of the value of those few assets already held by her outside of the estate, such as the Rolls-Royce Dawn and the Piper, and a modest pension pay-out that she has received. Either outcome, which would encompass the totality of the Claimant’s entitlement, would inevitably provide for significantly less than the amount offered by the First Defendant’s 27 April 2026 offer, as set out above.

Indeed, for the Claimant’s share to be worth more than the First Defendant’s open proposal, the claim would need to encompass a greater share than 80% of the value of properties acquired during the relationship, remembering always that the estate itself is less valuable than the value of the properties alone. Half of an 80% share of the properties acquired in the marriage would equate to £8,146,692. This would mean that her claim would need to be stronger than that of the applicant in FS v JS, which I am very clear that it is not, if she were to achieve as much as she has been offered. In those circumstances, I am satisfied that I need not further consider the sharing element of any potential matrimonial claim, nor try to determine where within the reasonable range the Claimant’s sharing claim should fall with any further precision. She would also no doubt have been entitled to some element of pension sharing, but I cannot determine how different from the sums she has actually received under the pensions following the Deceased’s death that modest entitlement might have been.

Needs. Turning to the question of needs, the Law Commission in its Paper no.343 entitled ‘Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements’, published on 26 February 2014, said this, in its section on policy conclusions in relation to how the question of need should be considered in the Financial Remedy courts.

Another aspect of this report was considered by Moylan J (as he then was) in BD v FD (No 2) (Application of the Principle of Need) [2016] EWHC 594 (Fam), when he looked at the point from which the assessment should start, and then went on to identify the factors which would inform the duration of any order. He said, from [114]:

This last aspect of provision for need has been reconsidered by the Duxbury Working Party in their ‘Final’ Report, initially published in late 2024, but then updated on 18 March 2025, and reported at [2025] 1 FRJ 3-24. This influential group, chaired by Lewis Marks KC and including Sir Nicholas Mostyn, has reconsidered whether the whole of life assumption previously made in relation to capitalising payments made under the MCA 1973 remains sound, in circumstances where whole-of-life terms to periodical payments orders in Financial Remedy proceedings are very rarely even considered, let alone made. In earlier editions of the FLBA publication ‘At a Glance’, the editors (three of whom also sit on the Working Group) had explained the previous basis for the whole of life model thus:

The Group explained the basis for their decision to change the default assumption in their report as follows:

The Group then went on the consider the particular problems created by both older and younger recipients of such awards (and here the Claimant falls into the upper end of the younger spectrum), and considered alternative mechanisms to achieve just outcomes in Financial Remedy cases:

These changes arguably demonstrate that the alignment of outcomes to claims under the 1975 Act and under the MCA 1973 might become looser in some cases than hitherto. As the Financial Remedy courts move away from whole life orders for the reasons discussed by the Working Group, it is easy to see that a claimant under the 1975 Act may now be able to advance a case for a whole-of-life Duxbury award with more justification than might a divorcing spouse, and that the differences in their respective positions identified for example by Wall LJ in Fielden & Anor v Cunliffe (above) might produce clearer distinctions in outcomes in future. It would be unusual indeed in these circumstances for a 1975 Act claimant to receive less now than might have been the case following marital breakdown, although the statute leaves that possibility open.

In Fielden (above), Wall LJ also considered, in 2005, whether what was formerly described as the ‘Besterman cushion’ had survived for claims under the 1975 Act. He said, at [77]:

Against the suggestion of potential divergence between outcomes under the MCA 1973 and the 1975 Act, however, two other considerations may apply. Firstly, the Working Group itself, whilst undoubtedly influential, can certainly not determine that the Financial Remedy courts in future will follow its suggestions, and as it itself acknowledges, there will remain cases where the award of whole life Duxbury sum in Financial Remedy proceedings will remain appropriate. Secondly, the courts dealing with claims under the 1975 Act will continue to have regard to a testator’s intentions, even though they will not be determinative. A surviving spouse would not foreseeably be left unable to meet their needs as they would have been defined in the event of a divorce, nor with less than their entitlement to share might have been if that were greater. However, there may yet not be too many cases where provision under a will which limits the surviving spouse to their entitlement on divorce as now quantified will be found to be unreasonable, given the similarity of the factors to be taken into consideration. The testator’s freedom to leave legacies from the balance of their estate elsewhere should be a powerful counterbalance to any claims by a surviving spouse to provision which exceeds what might have been provided in the event of divorce. I will now consider the impact of these factors for this claimant.

Needs in this case. Firstly, I am clear that, although the Claimant is only 47, and undoubtedly therefore has a real earning capacity, this is not a case where she will be expected to return to any remunerative employment to meet the budget that will be set for her. I accept that this was not something that the Deceased expected of her, and that she has never consequently earned more than £15,000pa, and that not for over 20 years. However, this is one of those cases where the term ‘needs’ is something of a misnomer, and what is really in issue is the appropriate level of lifestyle that should be available to the Claimant at the end of what has undeniably been a long marital relationship. Insofar as she wishes to able to afford items which, as I will explain below, I have not allowed her, there is no reason why she could not, as an intelligent and able woman only in the early stages of middle age, find a way to earn a modest income over the next two decades to supplement what she has. She will never need to do so.

For the reasons which I identified above, I am clear that her income claim in this regard is overstated. For the last two COVID free years of the relationship, 2019/20 and 2021/22, before shooting costs and any capital provision, the identifiable spend in the relationship seems to have been at an average of about £270,000pa for two people. Against that background the budget that I shall fairly allow for the Claimant alone is £275,000pa, but including shooting costs, on the basis of the separate budget which I annexe to this judgment.

Significant adjustments made include the following. On the basis of providing £20,000pa for servicing, maintenance and repairs to the plane, I have removed the annualised depreciation allowance, on the basis that this plane is likely to the be reasonably serviceable for another 20-30 years at least. I have also reduced the fuel allowance to £8,000pa, leaving £40,164pa under this head. I have removed the allowances for additional clothing in the shooting section, which can be met from the general clothing budget, but I have otherwise left that section as now claimed – £70,220pa. I have removed the annualised depreciation costs in relation to the cars. The Claimant did not have the regular use of 3 very high-end cars during the relationship, and does not require a carpool with a value at the time of probate of £620,000 on an ongoing basis. It is a matter for her how she manages her motoring arrangements, but on the basis that I have not included the capital value of these cars into her needs assessment, I have left her with plenty of scope for trading in to buy more practical models over the rest of her life. I have also reduced insurance and fuel costs to a still high but more reasonable level. I have in total allowed £24,394pa for motoring costs. For other personal expenses I have allowed £66,942pa, after reducing holidays to a figure of £20,000pa that is, I am confident, far more reflective of spending during the relationship, if not still generous. I have also reduced clothing and meals out to sensible but realistic levels which I consider more reflective of likely past spending. Food, groceries and cleaning materials I have reduced to £25,000pa, which remains a more than comfortable level for a single 47-year-old. Household expenses have been largely left as claimed, and are at a sufficiently generous level at £47,667pa to compensate for the removal of an annualised depreciation charge for the ‘mule’ and ride on mower.

This produces an overall figure of £274,387pa, which I will round up to £275,000pa. It will be seen that this budget, shorn of the figures for shooting, comes to just a shade over £200,000pa, as against the comparable figure of £270,000 for two people in the later years of the relationship. I consider this fair and properly reflective of an appropriate spending level for the Claimant in all of the circumstances.

In achieving a capitalising figure for this sum in financial remedy proceedings, I am confident, for the reasons explained above, that the court would not look to provide a sum predicated upon a whole-of-life Duxbury calculation. Rather given the length of the relationship, the Claimant’s age, and the significant age difference between her and the Deceased, I do not consider that the court would be likely to provide a capitalisation for any longer period than 20 years. For a projected income of £275,000pa, this would equate to a lump sum of £4,598,616, based on the Capitalise programme. To this figure, to determine the Claimant’s needs, would then fall to be added a figure for her housing, which I accept could fairly be put at £1,400,000, so a needs-based outcome of c.£6,000,000. Whilst I have excluded the value of the two cars received under the Will, it is very possible that their current value might have been included towards meeting these sums in a Financial Remedies context. It must also be remembered that the Claimant retains the Rolls-Royce Dawn and the Piper, which might well have been factored in. She would also likely have received some modest benefit under a pension sharing order.

Even for a calculation over 30 years, this income figure would require a payment of £6,484,994, so also potentially available to the Claimant, together with her housing, under the terms of the open offer which has been made by the First Defendant in this case. I do not however consider that a 30-year calculation is within the range of realistic outcomes to any Financial Remedy proceedings in these circumstances.

Outcome under the 1975 Act. As I also explained above, however, the concept of ‘unravelling the merger over time’ may be less applicable to some cases under the 1975 Act. There will undoubtedly be cases where a lifetime Duxbury will still be appropriate, perhaps more often than there will be in Financial Remedy claims. In deciding to what extent that principle might affect the outcome here, it is necessary, as it would be in every case, to look at the background circumstances, including the factors in ss.3(1) and (2) of the 1975 Act, and here in particular the duration of the relationship, which helps the Claimant, the available resources, and the Claimant’s age, which would militate against a whole-of-life calculation. In these circumstances also, the ascertainable intentions of the Deceased in terms of future provision for the Claimant, and for the First Defendant, are relevant. Given that the provision under the 2022 Will produces an outcome which appears less generous than those produced by the notional application of the sharing and needs principles in Financial Remedy proceedings, and in the absence of any credible evidence to the contrary despite the Claimant’s case, what can be understood of the Deceased’s intentions does not assist her is seeking a higher sum.

I have considered whether a stockpiling provision, as discussed by the Duxbury Working Party at [187] of their report (above), might be appropriate, given the modest available pension provision for the Claimant. (She has received £269,940, including interest). However, I am satisfied that there is already sufficient headroom in the figures, and in the capital provision already offered by the First Defendant, to render stockpiling unnecessary.

Overall, whilst I acknowledge that this has been a long marital relationship, the Claimant herself is still not much more than half-way through her expected life span, and an order of anything like the magnitude that she seeks (£16,000,000 on a capitalised needs basis) would have a significant impact on the First Defendant’s ability to fulfil what I find was the Deceased’s predominant wish to ensure that the estate which he had built up could be farmed after his death by his son. However, I am clear that such an order is not required in order to make reasonable financial provision for her in all of the circumstances of this case, applying the relevant provisions of the 1975 Act.

The Deceased’s wishes cannot of course be allowed to impact upon the need for reasonable provision to be made for the Claimant, and I am clear that the answer to the first of Lord Hughes’ two questions from Ilott v The Blue Cross (above) - ‘(1) did the will/intestacy make reasonable financial provision for the claimant’ – must be answered in the negative in this case. Provision for the Claimant to retain her home only for life, and then not if she cohabits, is entirely unreasonable after a marriage that can be treated as having lasted for 19 years. The First Defendant has recognised this by the open offers which he has made, initially with a proposal for an outright transfer of Glebe Farm and a lump sum of £4,000,000; and latterly by increasing the size of the lump sum to £5,000,000. This is the proposal against which Lord Hughes’ second question – ‘what reasonable financial provision ought now to be made for her?’ – can now be judged.

The value of that offer, sent on 27 April 2026, can be computed in total as follows. To the lump sum of £5,000,000 must be added the calculated accrued interest on the unpaid and late paid legacy of £517,330.68, and the net value of Glebe Farmhouse and its attached lands at £2,443,430. She has also received the two cars and a gun under the will. It has not been possible to ascribe an accurate current value to the vehicles. The Claimant has suggested a total of £225,000, but she acknowledged in her evidence that she had received higher offers for the Rolls-Royce than the value she was now seeking to ascribe to it. The probate values were a combined £500,000. Without the vehicles, the total available would be £7,960,761. Of that the sum of £1,400,000 can be ascribed to meet the Claimant’s lifetime housing need, which leaves £6,560,761.

Although I consider that in a Financial Remedies context a 20-year capitalisation is realistic, in the different circumstances of a 1975 Act claim, a longer period of 30 years is more justifiable. Over such a term, the sum of £6,560,761 would produce for the Claimant a sum of £278,082.07. Were the value of the cars to be added in, she would have an income fund worth somewhere between £6,785,761 and £7,000,000. I am therefore entirely satisfied that the outcome provided for the Claimant by the offer of 27 April 2026 makes reasonable financial provision for her, taking all of the various elements in this case into account.

In those circumstances, having considered all of the factors in s.3 of the 1975 Act, I will make an order which reflects the First Defendant’s final offer and replaces the provision under the 2022 Will for the Claimant with provision in those terms.

That is my judgment.