Marriage and forming a civil partnership: inheritance tax

Love and the formation of a civil partnership or getting married affect the couple’s liability to inheritance tax quite significantly. In this third and final part of the series on the UK tax impact of forming a romantic union I will show how failing to consider some of the following points can be very dangerous indeed.

Marriage revokes a will

If a testator creates a will in contemplation of marriage to a certain person or conditional on a marriage taking place to a particular person this last will and testament will be valid when the marriage or civil partnership does takes place. This kind of will needs to be very specific though as a general will made around marrying ‘someone’ at ‘some point in time’ will not suffice.

However if a will has been written and then the testator enters into a marriage or civil...