Court victory for some life partners on inheritance

GENERALLY, where life partners are not married, there is a problem if one dies without naming the other as a beneficiary in their will.

In the Intestate Succession Act and Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act, a spouse is automatically acknowledged in certain claims but not an unmarried life partner.

Late in December, in a victory for the right to inherit from an unmarried life partner, the Constitutional Court confirmed that certain sections of the act are unconstitutional, writes legal firm STBB.

The ruling follows the outcome of an action in the Western Cape High Court, instituted by STBB’s Cape Town litigation team, on behalf of the fiancée of a man who died before they could get married.

The couple had planned to start a family and open a business together but the fiancée was not mentioned in the man’s will. He had left his entire estate to his mother, who had died in 2013. At the time, the fiancée’s claim against the estate as “a surviving spouse” was rejected by the executors because she was not a “spouse”.

Legal firm STBB’s argument that the Intestate Succession Act should be amended to include, alongside the word “spouse”, also the words, “or a partner in a permanent opposite sex life partnership in which the partners had undertaken reciprocal duties of support and had been committed to marrying each other”, was accepted by the Western Cape High Court and has been confirmed by the Concourt.

COURTS have confirmed that life partners can inherit in certain circumstances. PICTURE: ADAM WINGER/UNSPLASH