{"id":29204,"date":"2025-02-12T15:47:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T15:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prelive-tdw.visibleone.app\/insight-and-news\/free-will-or-fair-share-the-courts-discretion-in-making-provisions-for-a-surviving-spouse\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T02:00:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T02:00:58","slug":"free-will-or-fair-share-the-courts-discretion-in-making-provisions-for-a-surviving-spouse","status":"publish","type":"insight-and-news","link":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/insight-and-news\/free-will-or-fair-share-the-courts-discretion-in-making-provisions-for-a-surviving-spouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Will or Fair Share? The Court\u2019s Discretion in Making Provisions for a Surviving Spouse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n    \n\n<div style=\"background-image:url('https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/wp-content\/themes\/tanner-de-witt\/images\/insightdetails.jpeg')\"\n    class=\"insight-news-detail-hero\" id=\"insight-news-detail-hero\">\n\n\t\t<div style=\"background-color:\" class=\"insight-news-detail-hero-overlay \"><\/div>\n            <div class=\"z-[0]\">\n                <div class=\"insight-news-breadcrumbs flex items-end practice-areas-featured-breadcrumbs \">\n                    <a class=\"page-link no-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/\">Home<\/a>                <\/div>\n\n\n                <div class=\"hero-title\">\n                    <h1>\n                        Free Will or Fair Share? The Court\u2019s Discretion in Making Provisions for a Surviving Spouse                    <\/h1>\n                <\/div>\n                \n                    <div style=\"\" class=\"hero-date \">\n\n                        <span class=\"month\">Feb<\/span>\n                        <span class=\"day\">12<\/span>\n                        <span class=\"year\">2025<\/span>\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n    \n\n    \n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<script >\n    (function () {\n        document.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\", () => {\n\n            const breadCrumbsContainer = Array.from(document.querySelectorAll(\".practice-areas-featured-breadcrumbs\"));\n\n            breadCrumbsContainer.forEach(container => {\n                const breadCrumbLinks = Array.from(container.querySelectorAll('.page-link'));\n                const breadCrumbSeperators = Array.from(container.querySelectorAll('.separator'));\n\n                if (Array.from(breadCrumbLinks).length === 1) {\n                    const homeNode = breadCrumbLinks[0];\n\n                    if (!homeNode) {\n                        return\n                    }\n\n                    const postTypeNode = homeNode.cloneNode(true);\n                    postTypeNode.textContent = \"Insights and News\";\n                    container.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', `<span class=\"separator practice-areas-featured-breadcrumb-item-slash\">\/<\/span>`)\n                    container.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', postTypeNode)\n                    breadCrumbLinks.push(postTypeNode);\n\n                    if (\"Insights\") {\n                        const categoryNode = homeNode.cloneNode(true);\n\n                        categoryNode.textContent = \"Insights\";\n                        container.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', `<span class=\"separator practice-areas-featured-breadcrumb-item-slash\">\/<\/span>`)\n                        container.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', categoryNode)\n                        breadCrumbLinks.push(categoryNode);\n                    }\n\n\n                    const titleNode = homeNode.cloneNode(true);\n\n                    titleNode.textContent = \"Free Will or Fair Share? The Court\u2019s Discretion in Making Provisions for a Surviving Spouse\";\n                    container.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', `<span class=\"separator practice-areas-featured-breadcrumb-item-slash\">\/<\/span>`)\n                    container.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', titleNode)\n                    breadCrumbLinks.push(titleNode);\n\n\n\n\n                }\n\n                breadCrumbLinks.forEach((link, index) => {\n\n                    link.classList.add('practice-areas-featured-breadcrumb-item-name');\n                    const origin = window.location.origin;\n                    const href = window.location.href;\n\n                    const originSplitter = window.location.href.includes(\"insight-and-news\") ? \"insight-and-news\" : window.location.href.includes('insights-and-news') ? \"insights-and-news\" : \"\"\n\n                    const paths = href.split(originSplitter);\n                    const links = paths[1].split(\"\/\").filter(Boolean)\n\n\n                    const resolvedOrigin = originSplitter ? 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CCIW &amp; Others<\/a> [2024] HKFC 157 underscores the necessity of making reasonable provisions for a surviving spouse when drafting a will. It also affirms the Court\u2019s discretion to award the spouse 50% of the deceased\u2019s estate, similar to what would be granted in divorce proceedings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Brief Background<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The deceased Husband and the Wife were married in 1953 and had 10 children during their marriage. The Husband was the family\u2019s sole breadwinner and the wife a homemaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Husband died in around 2016, with a will bequeathing all his assets to the 10 children, leaving nothing to the Wife. The Wife was suffering from dementia at the time of the application, and was therefore acted through the grand-daughter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Application and the Court\u2019s Findings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Wife applied for financial provisions from her deceased Husband\u2019s estate, arguing that he was financially supporting her at the time of his death. However, the executrix for the Husband\u2019s estate opposed this request, claiming that their marriage was essentially over (\u201cfossil marriage\u201d), they had arranged their lives if they were no longer married, and the Wife was not financially dependent on the Husband when he passed away.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Court rejected the executrix\u2019s arguments and found that:-<\/p>\n<p>(1) The marriage has not broken down \/ \u2018fossilised\u2019 and that there was evidence the parties lived together and even went on holidays together in the 1980\u2019s;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>(2) Although the Wife spent a substantial portion of her time in the United States, she stayed with the Deceased whenever she was in Hong Kong;<\/p>\n<p>(3) There was no evidence that the parties had completely severed their financial ties despite the executrix\u2019s argument that there was a \u2018clean break\u2019 settlement of HK$1million.<\/p>\n<p>(4) The Husband bought a plot of burial ground in anticipation to be buried together with the Wife; and<\/p>\n<p>(5) The Court found that the Husband intended for the children to use their shares of the Estate to support the Wife.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Ruling and Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Court emphasised that it retains the discretion to make reasonable financial provisions for the Wife, notwithstanding that no financial provision was made under the Husband\u2019s Will.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, the Court reiterated that it must consider all relevant matters and that \u2018<em>there is no hierarchy among the matters to which the court must have regard and each of them may be of infinitely variable weight<\/em>.\u2019 \u00a0Further, the Court accepts that the \u201cnotional divorce\u2019 enquiry should be made to cross check against the surviving spouse\u2019s reasonable financial needs. Further, the needs of the other beneficiaries should also be taken into consideration when deciding the outcome. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the end, the Court awarded 50% of the Estate in favour of the surviving Wife, in a similar manner as Wife would have received as if the parties had divorced prior to the Husband\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n<p>Key Takeaways from the decisions are as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Regardless of the disposition under the Will, the surviving spouse is entitled to make a claim for financial provision from the deceased\u2019s estate pursuant to the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Ordinance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The Court will have to consider a basket of factors when making a determination, none of these factors are determinative and necessarily carry more weight than the other factors;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A \u2018Fossil Marriage\u2019 is one which cohabitation ended some time before the death of the deceased, and the parties to the marriage had arranged their lives on the footing that the marriage had ended.\u00a0 In that case, the Court would likely treat the surviving spouse (albeit still legally married) similar to that of a former spouse for the purposes of an IPFDO application.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>When determining the financial provisions for the surviving spouse, the \u2018notional divorce\u2019 enquiry was conducted to cross check the reasonable financial needs of the surviving spouse.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>If a will was in place to either include the spouse as a beneficiary or deliberately excluding the spouse for specified reasons, then the parties may have averted expensive litigation that could give an uncertain result.\u201d\u00a0 Generally, if we have more explicit statements about \u201cexcluding\u201d any beneficiary, that would help mitigate the risk of litigation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><strong><em>Eddie Look and Adrian Au<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Reach out to our private client team to discuss wills preparation, probate, estate administration, financial provisions for dependents and divorce matters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/our-people\/adrian-au\/\">Adrian Au<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Partner | <a href=\"mailto:adrianau@tannerdewitt.com\">adrianau@tannerdewitt.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer: This publication is general in nature and is not intended to constitute legal advice. You should seek professional advice before taking any action in relation to the matters dealt with in this publication. This article was last reviewed on 12 February 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent ruling in the case of WLK by MYW her next friend v. CCIW &amp; Others [2024] HKFC 157 underscores the necessity of making reasonable provisions for a surviving spouse when drafting a will. It also affirms the Court\u2019s discretion to award the spouse 50% of the deceased\u2019s estate, similar to what would be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"insight-category":[1121],"insight-month":[1157],"insight-practice-area":[1123,1133],"insight-year":[1147],"class_list":["post-29204","insight-and-news","type-insight-and-news","status-publish","hentry","insight-category-legal-updates-and-insights","insight-month-february","insight-practice-area-family","insight-practice-area-private-client","insight-year-1147"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-and-news\/29204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-and-news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/insight-and-news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-and-news\/29204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30748,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-and-news\/29204\/revisions\/30748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29204"},{"taxonomy":"insight-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-category?post=29204"},{"taxonomy":"insight-month","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-month?post=29204"},{"taxonomy":"insight-practice-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-practice-area?post=29204"},{"taxonomy":"insight-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tannerdewitt.com\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight-year?post=29204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}