Can a court excuse someone from the forfeiture rule?

Yes, but only outside murder. Section 2 of the Forfeiture Act 1982 lets a court modify or exclude the rule's effect where the justice of the case requires it, taking into account the conduct of the person who died and of the person applying for relief. Section 5 makes murder the one exception the court cannot touch: 'Nothing in this Act or in any order made under section 2 or referred to in section 3(1) of this Act or in any decision made under section 4(1A) of this Act shall affect the application of the forfeiture rule in the case of a person who stands convicted of murder.' Manslaughter, and unlawful killing found without any conviction at all, are both within the court's discretion.

Is there a time limit to apply for relief from forfeiture?

It depends on whether there has been a conviction. Where someone stands convicted of an offence of which unlawful killing is an element, section 2(3) requires the application for relief to be brought within three months of that conviction, in England and Wales, and the court has no power to extend it — confirmed in Challen v Challen [2020] EWHC 1330 (Ch). Where there has been no criminal conviction at all — which is the position in most assisted-dying-adjacent cases, since the CPS's own published policy lists being 'wholly motivated by compassion', and having 'reported the incident and fully assisted the police', among the factors it weighs against prosecution — that three-month clock is never triggered, because it runs from a conviction date that doesn't exist.

Does helping someone die abroad, at a Swiss clinic, count as unlawfully killing them?

It can trigger the forfeiture rule, yes — separately from any criminal prosecution. In Morris v Morris & Ors [2024] EWHC 2554 (Ch), the High Court found that a husband who arranged his wife's trip to a clinic in Switzerland, helped pay its fees and completed the paperwork on arrival had done enough to make out an offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 — the judge was clear that merely accompanying someone may or may not count as assistance depending on the circumstances, and would not, on its own, have been enough here. He was never prosecuted; reporting his wife's death to the police himself the next day was one of the factors that told against a charge, not part of what made out the offence. The court then used its section 2(2) discretion to exclude the forfeiture rule entirely, finding no moral culpability: his wife's decision was voluntary, clear, settled and made before he took any step that could count as assistance.

Will the assisted dying bill fix this?

Genuinely unclear — not a simple yes or no. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill — reintroduced in the House of Commons on 17 June 2026 after its predecessor fell when Parliament was prorogued on 29 April 2026, with a Second Reading scheduled for 11 September 2026 — would amend the Suicide Act 1961 so that assisting a death lawfully, through the Bill's own process, is not a criminal offence, and the forfeiture rule only catches an unlawful killing — so on one reading, lawful assistance falls outside the rule entirely. The Bill also states that providing assistance under it does not, of itself, give rise to civil liability. What it does not do is name the forfeiture rule specifically, or say whether that clause is meant to reach a rule of public policy rather than an ordinary civil claim. Whether a person who lawfully helps under a future Act would still need to ask a court for relief from forfeiture, as Philip Morris did, is a live drafting question that neither Parliament nor the courts have settled yet.

Is this the same in Scotland?

No — different Parliament, different bill, different outcome so far. Scotland's own Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill fell at its Stage 3 vote in the Scottish Parliament on 17 March 2026, by 57 votes to 69, with 1 abstention. The Forfeiture Act 1982 itself extends to Scotland, but with its own amended time limit for relief there — a six-month 'relevant period', inserted by the Succession (Scotland) Act 2016, rather than the three-month rule described above, which is England and Wales only. This page does not go further into the Scottish position.

Forfeiture Act 1982 · England & Wales

Assisted dying and the forfeiture rule: what happens to inheritance

Q: What exactly is the forfeiture rule?

The forfeiture rule is a rule of public policy, set out in section 1 of the Forfeiture Act 1982, that stops a person who has unlawfully killed another from acquiring any benefit as a result — an inheritance under a will or under intestacy, a share of jointly-held property that would otherwise pass by survivorship, or a life insurance payout — and, in practice, a discretionary pension death benefit too, though that rests on the scheme trustees' discretion rather than on the Act itself. It also catches someone who unlawfully aided, abetted, counselled or procured the death, not only the person who caused it directly. It does not require a murder conviction; the courts can, and do, apply it on their own finding of unlawful killing.

Answer

Under the Forfeiture Act 1982, anyone who unlawfully kills another person — or unlawfully helps them die — is normally barred from inheriting from them, taking their share of jointly-held property, or receiving a life insurance payout — and, in practice, a discretionary pension death benefit too, though that rests on the scheme trustees' discretion rather than on the Act itself. Courts can excuse this for manslaughter and other unlawful killings, but never for murder. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill now restarting in the Commons would amend the Suicide Act 1961 so that assisting a death lawfully, through its own process, stops being a criminal offence — and the forfeiture rule only bites on a killing that is unlawful, so on one reading that takes lawful assistance outside the rule entirely. The Bill also states that providing assistance under it does not, of itself, give rise to civil liability. Whether that reaches this specific rule of public policy, rather than an ordinary civil claim, is a genuine unresolved drafting question — not something Parliament or the courts have settled yet.

This page covers the rule itself, the court's power to excuse it, the real cases people meet it through, and where the assisted dying legislation currently stands. It is information about how the law works, not advice on your own situation.

Health & welfare power of attorney Reading ahead? Start with a will

§I

What the forfeiture rule actually stops

The forfeiture rule is not a piece of succession law — it is a rule of public policy that overrides succession law. s.1 FA 1982 — section 1 of the Forfeiture Act 1982 — defines the term, for the purposes of the Act, as “the rule of public policy which in certain circumstances precludes a person who has unlawfully killed another from acquiring a benefit in consequence of the killing.” The rule itself is older than the Act, and remains a common-law rule the courts developed themselves — the Act does not codify or create it. What the Act does is define the term, give the courts a discretion to relieve against it (§II), and carve murder out of that discretion entirely (also §II). Whatever a will or the intestacy rules would otherwise say, a killer has never been allowed to profit from the death.

It reaches further than the person who caused the death. The Act also catches anyone who has “unlawfully aided, abetted, counselled or procured” the death — so a person who helped, arranged, or encouraged an unlawful killing can be caught by the rule even where someone else administered the fatal act.

And it does not require a criminal conviction at all: a civil court can make its own finding, on the facts before it, that a death was unlawfully caused or assisted — a point that matters a great deal for §III below.

What counts as "a benefit" is deliberately broad.

An inheritance under a will or under the intestacy rules is the obvious one. The Act itself does not define which other property interests count — that has been worked out through case law.

The courts have applied the rule to a share of jointly-held property that would otherwise pass by survivorship (Re K [1985] Ch 85, Dunbar v Plant [1998] Ch 412 — both in §II) and to a life insurance payout written to the person concerned.

A discretionary pension death benefit or nomination usually gets caught too, in practice — scheme trustees routinely withhold it from someone found to have caused the death — but that outcome rests on the trustees' own discretion and the analogy practitioners draw with the rule, not on any Act that names pensions as a covered “interest in property”, or on a reported case that settles it.

What unites the examples the courts have actually decided is the same test: anything that would otherwise reach the person in consequence of the death, not only what a will names them for.

The rule applies automatically, before any court gets involved. It is the discretion to excuse it — covered next — that a court has to be asked to exercise. Left alone, the rule simply operates: the killing, or the unlawful assistance, is enough on its own to block the benefit.

§II

The court can excuse it — except for murder

Section 2 gives the court a genuine, fact-sensitive discretion — but section 5 puts one category entirely beyond its reach. s.2 FA 1982 lets a court make an order modifying or excluding the forfeiture rule's effect, wherever it is satisfied that “the justice of the case requires” it, having regard to the conduct of the person applying and of the person who died, and to any other material circumstances. This is a real weighing exercise, not a formality — the reported cases below turn entirely on how a judge reads that conduct.

Murder is the one door section 2 cannot open.

s.5 FA 1982: “Nothing in this Act … shall affect the application of the forfeiture rule in the case of a person who stands convicted of murder.” Murder forfeiture is absolute. Manslaughter — including manslaughter by diminished responsibility, or a conviction reduced from murder on appeal — sits inside the court's discretion. Murder itself does not, however sympathetic the facts.

Where a conviction exists

s.2 FA 1982 sets a strict clock: the application for relief must be brought within 3 months of the conviction, and the court has no power to extend it. In Challen v Challen [2020] EWHC 1330 (Ch), a wife's murder conviction for killing her coercively-controlling husband was quashed and replaced with manslaughter; the High Court held the clock ran from the later manslaughter conviction, not the original one — which is how her application succeeded in time.

Where there is no conviction at all

The three-month clock is triggered by a conviction date — so where nobody has been convicted of anything, it never starts to run. This is the position in most assisted-dying-adjacent cases: the CPS's own published policy lists “wholly motivated by compassion” and having “reported the incident and fully assisted the police” among the factors that weigh against prosecution, so the person applying for relief is often doing so without ever having faced a charge. §III below shows exactly this, in a case decided in 2024.

Two further cases show the range of the discretion in ordinary domestic-abuse and mercy-killing settings. In Re K [1985] Ch 85, a wife convicted of manslaughter after killing her violent husband was granted relief and allowed to succeed to the jointly-owned home and inherit under his will.

In Dunbar v Plant [1998] Ch 412 the Court of Appeal granted relief to the survivor of a suicide pact who had assisted her fiancé's death — letting her take their jointly-owned home by survivorship, the couple's bank accounts, and the proceeds of a life insurance policy written to her.

Without relief, the forfeiture rule would have stripped her of the full beneficial interest survivorship gave her in the house — not merely her own existing half share — along with the accounts and the insurance proceeds.

Both cases turn on the same question section 2 always asks: was this conduct the court can, in conscience, look past?

§III

How people actually meet this rule today

Three routes make up a good share of the reported forfeiture cases, and the third is the one this page exists for. None of these are theoretical. Each is a real, decided High Court case, and each shows the discretion in §II being exercised on genuinely different facts. They are not the only routes — road-traffic cases (Amos v Mancini [2020] EWHC 1063 (Ch), decided weeks before Challen) and cases turning on diminished capacity (Henderson v Wilcox) reach the rule too — but they are the three that matter most for this page's subject.

Manslaughter and coercive control

In Challen v Challen [2020] EWHC 1330 (Ch), Sally Challen's murder conviction for killing her coercively-controlling husband was quashed and replaced with manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility. The High Court granted relief from forfeiture, allowing her to inherit. The clock ran from the later conviction, not the original, now-quashed one — the point that made her application timely at all.

'Mercy killing' before any assisted dying statute

In Withers Trust Corporation v Estate of Goodman [2023] EWHC 2780 (Ch), Master McQuail found, on the balance of probabilities, that Adrian Berry had either assisted his terminally ill wife's suicide or ended her life himself — but held it was “not possible, on the evidence, … to decide as between those matters.” Either way, an unlawful killing had occurred, engaging the rule; the court then granted full relief, finding his conduct — acting at her own behest, with extreme reluctance — carried no moral culpability justice required to hold against his estate.

Lawfully-abroad assisted dying, today

In Morris v Morris & Ors [2024] EWHC 2554 (Ch), Philip Morris accompanied his wife Myra to the Pegasos clinic in Switzerland, where she died on 5 December 2023. The High Court found his conduct — arranging the trip, helping pay the clinic's fees, and completing the paperwork — was enough to make out an offence under s.2 Suicide Act 1961. Merely accompanying someone, the judge held, “may or may not be assisting the suicide depending on the circumstances” — on its own it would not have been enough here; it was the organising and paperwork that did it. He was never prosecuted: reporting Myra's death to the police himself the next day was one of the factors that told against it. Relief was granted in full — his wife's decision was voluntary, clear and settled before he did anything capable of counting as assistance. Ninian v Findlay [2019] EWHC 297 (Ch) reached the same result on an earlier Dignitas death, and is the case Morris built on.

Assisting suicide stays a serious criminal offence, separately from any of this.

s.2 Suicide Act 1961 carries a maximum sentence of 14 years' imprisonment. The Crown Prosecution Service's published policy on encouraging or assisting suicide sets out the factors that weigh for and against prosecution, including whether the suspect was “wholly motivated by compassion” and whether they “reported the incident and fully assisted the police” — factors Philip Morris met, above.

No published figure tells you how often those factors actually stop a charge; what the policy does establish is that compassionate, self-reported assistance is a case the CPS is directed to weigh against prosecuting, not a case it is barred from prosecuting.

But the forfeiture question is a civil one, decided on its own facts, as Morris v Morris shows: it does not wait for, or depend on, a prosecution ever taking place.

Figure watch

The figures on this page change.

Court fees rise, thresholds move, deadlines shift.

Every figure on this page is dated and carries its source, and we re-check them against those sources. Leave an email and it reaches us directly.

§IV

Where the assisted dying bill actually stands

The Bill now before Parliament is starting again from the beginning — and whether it touches the forfeiture rule is a genuinely open question, not a settled one. Two separate facts sit side by side here: what stage the legislation has actually reached, and what it actually says — on a fair reading either way — about the question this page is about.

The first Bill fell — it did not become law.

The original Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed all its Commons stages (agreed 20 June 2025) and reached House of Lords committee stage, but had not completed its Lords stages when Parliament was prorogued ahead of the King's Speech on 29 April 2026. Under Parliament's own rules, a bill that has not received Royal Assent by prorogation falls — it does not carry over, and does not become law.

A fresh Bill was reintroduced — starting over in the Commons.

A new Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill for the 2026–27 session was presented to the Commons by Lauren Edwards MP on 17 June 2026, having been drawn second in the Private Members' Bill ballot; its text was published 16 July 2026. Its Second Reading is currently scheduled for Friday 11 September 2026 — a date worth checking close to the day, since Private Members' Bill Fridays are routinely lost to other business.

It sets out a lawful process to be assisted to die — nothing more.

The Bill's long title is to “allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life.” It applies to England and Wales only.

What it says about forfeiture is genuinely contested, not settled either way.

The Bill amends the Suicide Act 1961 regime so that assisting a death lawfully, through its own process, is not a criminal offence — and s.1 FA 1982 only catches someone who has unlawfully killed another, so on one reading that takes lawful assistance outside the forfeiture rule before any question of relief arises. The Bill also states directly that “the doing of any of the following does not, of itself, give rise to any civil liability: (a) providing assistance to a person to end their own life in accordance with this Act…” — this is not a Bill silent on civil consequences. What it does not do is name the forfeiture rule specifically, or settle whether “civil liability” in that clause is meant to reach a rule of public policy, as distinct from an ordinary civil claim. Osbornes Law's analysis of the 2024–26 Bill — the one that fell at prorogation, not the reintroduced one — read that predecessor as leaving the forfeiture question open; whether the redrafted civil-liability clause changes that is the live question this page cannot settle for you.

What this means in practice, if the Bill becomes law as currently drafted.

A spouse, partner or family member who lawfully helps someone through the Act's process — arranging appointments, being present, supporting the person through the safeguards the Bill itself requires — could, on one reading, sit entirely outside the forfeiture rule's reach, because the assistance was never an unlawful killing in the first place.

On the more cautious reading, they could still face a forfeiture-rule question over any inheritance, joint property, pension nomination or life insurance benefit from that person's estate, until Parliament, a court or clearer drafting settles which reading is right.

Either way, a court's s.2 FA 1982 discretion — the same discretion Philip Morris needed, in a case that predates the Bill entirely — remains the fallback if the cautious reading turns out to be the correct one.

One further case worth knowing: Re Peace, Grant v Murphy (2025, unreported) concerned the estate of David Peace, who died at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland accompanied by a friend he had left a flat to in his will.

As Farrer & Co's write-up explains, the High Court confirmed that where every beneficiary of a will or intestacy is an adult with capacity, they can waive the forfeiture rule between themselves by agreement, without offending public policy — sparing the estate a full court application for relief.

Farrer & Co frame that waiver route as sitting alongside the new Bill, for cases that don't satisfy its own requirements — itself a sign that practitioners do not yet treat the Bill as having closed the forfeiture question outright.

§V

Scotland and the Isle of Man are running their own, separate processes

This page is England & Wales only

Assisted dying is being legislated separately in every part of these islands, at very different speeds. The Bill described above has no effect outside England and Wales — Scotland and the Isle of Man each have their own assisted-dying legislation, at different stages, under different parliaments.

Scotland — fell at Stage 3

The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill was rejected at its Stage 3 vote in the Scottish Parliament on 17 March 2026, by 57 votes to 69, with 1 abstention. It did not become law.

Isle of Man — further advanced

A separate jurisdiction with its own legislature. Tynwald cleared the Assisted Dying Bill's final stage on 25 March 2025; amendments needed for Royal Assent were approved in June 2026 (16–6 in the House of Keys, 5–1 in the Legislative Council).

The Act still needs secondary legislation and a Code of Practice before it can be commenced, with assisted dying expected to become available to eligible Manx residents from around 2027. This page does not develop the Isle of Man position beyond this single note.

Forfeiture's own Scottish clock

The Forfeiture Act 1982 extends to Scotland too, but its time limit there was amended by the Succession (Scotland) Act 2016 to a six-month “relevant period” — not the England & Wales three-month rule in §II. The two figures are not interchangeable.

Confirm the current position with a solicitor qualified in the relevant jurisdiction before relying on any of the three notes above. Northern Ireland is not covered anywhere on this page.

§VI

What actually protects a family, right now

Nothing above changes by planning ahead — but planning ahead changes who has to argue about it later. The forfeiture rule is a question that arises after a death, decided by a court on facts nobody can fully control in advance. What a household can control now is what happens before that point is ever reached — who is legally authorised to make medical and welfare decisions, and what is written down about your own wishes.

A health & welfare LPA

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LP1H) lets someone you trust make medical and welfare decisions if you lose the capacity to make them yourself — including decisions about life-sustaining treatment, if you choose to give them that authority. It is registered with the Office of the Public Guardian for £92, separately from the property-and-finance LPA (£184 for both). It says nothing about assisted dying specifically — no LPA can authorise that — but it is the instrument that keeps end-of-life medical decisions with someone you named, not a stranger.

An advance decision

A written advance decision to refuse treatment lets you set out, in advance, specific treatments you do not want in specific future circumstances — a separate, narrower instrument from an LPA, and one an attorney cannot override where it validly applies. Both sit inside the same planning conversation as the health & welfare LPA above.

A will that says what you actually intend

None of the above changes who inherits. A clearly drafted will is still the instrument that decides that — and, separately, is worth revisiting if a forfeiture question has ever touched your own family, since a court's relief from forfeiture restores what the will or intestacy would otherwise have given, it does not rewrite it.

If the forfeiture question has already arisen in a family you're settling an estate for, this is a matter for a solicitor, not a web page — an application under s.2 FA 1982 is contested proceedings on your own facts, and, where a conviction exists, the three-month clock in §II runs regardless of whether anyone has told you it has started.

Valoren's power of attorney guide and the wills door are the planning-ahead instruments Valoren actually builds; neither is the right tool for a forfeiture dispute itself.

FAQ

The questions people actually type.

A rule of public policy that stops a killer profiting from the death. Set out in s.1 FA 1982, it stops a person who has unlawfully killed another from acquiring any benefit as a result — an inheritance under a will or under intestacy, a share of jointly-held property that would otherwise pass by survivorship, or a life insurance payout — and, in practice, a discretionary pension death benefit too, though that rests on the scheme trustees' discretion rather than on the Act itself.

It also catches someone who “unlawfully aided, abetted, counselled or procured” the death, not only the person who caused it directly.

It does not require a murder conviction — the courts can, and do, apply it on their own finding of unlawful killing.

Yes, but only outside murder. s.2 FA 1982 lets a court modify or exclude the rule's effect where “the justice of the case requires”, weighing the conduct of the person who died and of the person applying for relief.

s.5 FA 1982 makes murder the one exception the court cannot touch: “Nothing in this Act … shall affect the application of the forfeiture rule in the case of a person who stands convicted of murder.”

Manslaughter, and unlawful killing found without any conviction at all, both sit within the court's discretion.

Scoped to England and Wales unless a question says otherwise; Scotland and the Isle of Man are noted in §V only. Checked against legislation.gov.uk, BAILII and the House of Commons Library on 30 August 2026. This page is information about how the rules work, not advice on your situation — for a forfeiture application, or anything turning on your own facts, take advice from a solicitor.

The law here is unsettled. Your own paperwork doesn't have to be.

Whichever way Parliament eventually resolves the forfeiture question, the instruments that put the right people in charge of your own decisions already exist today. A health & welfare LPA and a clearly drafted will are both things you can put in place now, without waiting for any Act to pass.

Power of attorney · £92 per LPA at the OPG

Set up a health & welfare LPA

Who makes medical and welfare decisions if you can't — LP1F and LP1H explained plainly, OPG fees, and how to register.

Read the guide→Wills · from £149

A will is what decides who inherits

What Valoren does, and what it costs, set out plainly — including Will Watch and registration included in the first year.

See the wills door→