When an unmarried partner dies, the survivor is often surprised to learn they do not automatically inherit. Their main route to provision is a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, usually called the 1975 Act. A recent High Court decision, Matyas v Daniel [2026] EWHC 1368 (Ch), is a powerful reminder that this route is far from automatic. The surviving partner brought a claim and lost it on no fewer than four separate grounds.

This article explains what happened, why the claim failed, and what it means for unmarried couples and anyone advising them.

It is based on the full approved judgment. Some early news coverage described the claim as failing on three grounds and put different figures on the estate. The judgment itself sets out four reasons, and the values used below are taken from the judge’s own calculations.

The background

Huan Liu, known as Chris, was a clothing designer who was born in China and later moved to London. He died on 10 April 2017, aged 47. He left two flats in his sole name, Kinetica Apartments in Hackney and a flat at Atkins Square, and a rental property at Thornbury Close that he owned jointly with his partner.

That partner, Tibor Matyas, brought two claims against the estate. First, he said he was entitled to a half share of the two sole name flats, on the basis that he and Chris had run their personal and business lives as a single unit. Second, he claimed reasonable financial provision from the estate under the 1975 Act as a cohabitant.

Mr Matyas had not been left with nothing. Thornbury Close was held as joint tenants, so his half passed to him automatically when Chris died. Chris’s will also left him a quarter share of the Atkins Square flat. The judge calculated that Mr Matyas ended up with net capital of around £265,000, roughly 20% of Chris’s estate of just over £1 million.

Upper Tribunal Judge Andrew Scott, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, rejected both claims.

The property claim, and why it failed

The judge dismissed the claim to a half share of the sole name flats. He placed considerable weight on a transfer form (a TR1) that Mr Matyas had signed in April 2011, when the Kinetica flat was put into Chris’s sole name. In that form Mr Matyas expressly confirmed that the property “should always have been held in the sole name of Huan Liu”, and that the legal and beneficial interest was Chris’s alone. The judge found that Mr Matyas had no beneficial interest in either flat, had made no financial contribution to buying them, and was, in any event, an unconvincing and unreliable witness.

The lesson is a familiar one in property disputes. A signed document recording who owns what is very hard to argue away later, however close the couple were.

Why the 1975 Act claim failed: four reasons

The more instructive part of the judgment is the 1975 Act claim, which the judge said failed for four separate reasons. Three went to the substance of the claim. The fourth was that it had been brought far too late.

1. The deceased was not domiciled in England and Wales

This is a threshold that applies to every 1975 Act claim, whoever brings it. The Act only applies where the deceased died domiciled in England and Wales. The judge found that Chris kept strong and continuing ties to both China and New Zealand. He had renewed a New Zealand passport, described his nationality as a New Zealander in a company filing, and was proud of his Chinese heritage. The judge concluded that Chris had not made England and Wales his permanent home, so he was not domiciled here when he died. That finding alone defeated the claim.

Domicile catches out couples with international lives. It is not about where someone happens to live, but about where they have their permanent home and intend to stay. A partner with strong roots abroad can put the whole claim out of reach before the merits are even considered.

2. They were not living together as a couple for the required two years

To claim as a cohabitant, a survivor must show they were living in the same household as the deceased, as a married couple or civil partners would, for the whole of the two years immediately before the death.

The judge was not satisfied that test was met. The evidence about the relationship was inconsistent. Chris described it to his family and his solicitors as a business relationship. To public authorities he presented the two of them as living separately, claiming a single occupancy council tax discount on Kinetica and giving Mr Matyas a different address for his driving licence and in his will. Chris kept much of his property in his sole name and left his company shares to his family. He had also kept the relationship secret from his parents.

As the judge put it, “although there is some evidence that suggests that Chris and Mr Matyas were living together as a married couple, my view is that the balance of the evidence before me is not consistent with that conclusion”. His overall assessment was blunt: “Chris’s family mattered to him more than Mr Matyas did.”

This is the battleground in most cohabitant claims. The court looks at the whole picture and asks whether a reasonable person would say the couple were genuinely living together as a couple. How the relationship was presented to family, to the authorities, and on official paperwork can matter a great deal.

3. The will had already made reasonable provision

Even if the first two hurdles had been cleared, the judge found that the provision already made for Mr Matyas was reasonable. He was 39, in good health, and had a wide range of skills and work experience, in information technology, fashion, sales, and management, and had even worked as a chef in a three Michelin star restaurant. He was, in the judge’s view, capable of living independently. He had received his half of Thornbury Close by survivorship and a quarter share of Atkins Square under the will. The judge concluded that “Chris had no obligation or responsibility towards Mr Matyas”.

This reflects a point we have made before. A cohabitant’s award is limited to what is reasonable for their maintenance, which is a lower standard than a surviving spouse enjoys. Where the survivor is young, healthy, able to earn, and has already received a substantial sum, the court may well decide that no further provision is needed.

4. The claim was brought far too late

A 1975 Act claim normally has to be brought within six months of the grant of probate. The court can extend that deadline, but only if there is a good reason. Here, the administration of Chris’s estate was bogged down in dispute for years, and Mr Matyas did not issue his 1975 Act claim until 2024 and 2025, some nine years after the death and well outside the six month window.

The judge refused to extend time. He found that Mr Matyas had been “playing for time”, and that allowing such a late claim “would, in substance, reward conduct sustained over a nine year period designed, in a deliberate and considered way, to delay the administration of the estate”.

For most people the practical message is simpler. The six month clock is short, and the courts will not always rescue a claimant who lets it run out.

What this case tells unmarried partners

Read alongside cases where cohabitants have succeeded, such as Thompson v Raggett [2018] EWHC 688 (Ch), where an elderly partner of more than forty years was awarded a cottage outright, Matyas v Daniel shows that the outcome is intensely fact specific. A cohabiting partner does not have an automatic right to anything. To succeed, they generally need to show that the deceased was domiciled here, that the relationship was genuinely lived and presented as a relationship equivalent to marriage for at least two years, that they have a real financial need the estate has not already met, and that they have brought their claim in time.

There is a wider point too. This is exactly the kind of dispute the Government’s 2026 consultation on cohabitation rights is responding to. Under the current law, a long term partner can be forced into expensive litigation, and can still lose, even after years together. We have written a full analysis of that consultation and what other countries have learned here, and a plain English guide to whether an unmarried partner can claim here. For now, though, the law is as it stands, and cases like this one show how demanding it can be.

Practical takeaways

If you are an unmarried couple, the clearest protection in either direction is a properly drafted will, supported by clear documents recording who owns what. If you are a surviving partner who has been left out, or left with less than you expected, it is worth taking early advice, because of that strict six month time limit.

Most of these disputes never reach a courtroom. The great majority are resolved through negotiation or mediation, which keeps costs down and spares a grieving family a public fight. The litigation in Matyas v Daniel ran for nine years and consumed the estate in legal costs, a stark illustration of what can happen when matters are not resolved sensibly and early.

If your partner has died and you were not married, or you are an executor or beneficiary facing a claim from a cohabiting partner, our specialist contentious probate team can tell you quickly and confidentially where you stand, and will always look to settle without the stress and cost of a trial wherever possible. Many of our cases are funded on a genuine 100% No Win No Fee basis. Call 0161 515 7329 or request a callback through the Fifty Six Law website.

Article written and researched by Paul Wood FRSA

This content is for general informational purposes only, reflects the opinion of the author, and does not constitute legal advice or create a relationship of solicitor and client. For legal advice, please contact the specialist solicitors at Fifty Six Law.