Legal News | 20.11.25

The impact of divorce on your estate

During a relationship breakdown, your assets and circumstances are likely to change, and consequently the provision in your existing Will may no longer accord with your wishes. We would therefore strongly recommend reviewing your Will to reflect these changes, or if you do not have an existing Will, to make one.

A divorce is only legally finalised when the Final Order has been issued. In some circumstances, you can be divorced; however, financial issues remain unresolved.

If you are in the process of divorcing but the Final Order has not been made, there can be risks to your estate if you were to die before this, including:

• if your Will benefits your spouse, this may have the unintended outcome of your assets being distributed to your spouse; or

• if you do not have a Will in place, the rules of intestacy will apply. These rules allocate an individual’s estate to family members in a strict order. Where there are children, the estate is allocated as follows:

     i. the surviving spouse will inherit the first £322,000 of the estate, all personal belongings, and half of the remaining estate; and

     ii. the children will then equally share the other half of the remaining estate.

Where there are no children, the spouse is entitled to the entire residuary estate.

The process to reach a financial settlement and finalise the divorce can be lengthy if the parties are not in agreement, and therefore we would recommend that a holding Will is prepared to cover the interim period.

As part of the divorce process, you will also need to closely review your assets and financial position, including the ownership structure of the family home. Without severing any joint tenancy of a property (whereby each spouse effectively owns the whole property), if a spouse were to die before the divorce is finalised, the entire property would pass automatically to the surviving spouse/owner on death irrespective of a Will.

Our Family and Divorce Team at family@wansbroughs.com can help you obtain financial disclosure if you are getting divorced so that you have an understanding of your assets, including the legal ownership of the family home. If you are contemplating divorce or separation and would like some initial legal advice, they are able to provide a 30-minute free of charge first meeting.

Once the divorce and financial settlement are finalised in which you have full knowledge of your assets, your Will can then be revisited, and you can consider long term estate planning.

If you are in the early stages of separation, or if your financial settlement and divorce have been finalised, our Private Client team at wealth@wansbroughs.com can review your Will or put one in place.