Rise of the deathbed marriage

Close up on man and woman holding hands in hospital

Getting married before you die is, financially, a ‘no-brainer’

(Image credit: Elizabeth Fernandez / Getty)

Increasing numbers of people are saying “I do” at the eleventh hour – although it may not be so much the “ultimate romantic gesture” as “simply a sensible financial move”, said The Times.

“So-called deathbed marriages” have increased by 13.5% in the past year, according to recently released General Register Office data.

Cohabiting couples

Deathbed weddings can be applied for at “short notice” or “in locations not normally able to hold ceremonies” when a partner is “seriously ill and not expected to recover”, said The Telegraph. Once medical evidence is provided, a special licence can be granted, often on the same day, allowing the ceremony to take place at home, in a hospital or at a hospice.

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Over 1,600 couples applied for a short-notice marriage in England and Wales in the year up to March 2025, General Register Office statistics show – an uptick from 1,567 in 2024 and 1,420 in 2023, and a big jump from 500 or so a decade ago.

The rise could be explained by the “growing trend” for couples to live together instead of marrying, said Alison Fernandes, a partner at Hall Brown family law solicitors, told The Times. This means more people find themselves facing death with a cohabiting, rather than married, partner – and that can have an effect on inheritance. The percentage of couples living together without getting married climbed from 19.7% in 2012 to 22.7% in 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics.

‘Powerful tax benefits’

The appeal of deathbed marriages is the ability to “dodge hefty inheritance tax bills”, said the Daily Mail. Only married couples and civil partners can inherit each other’s assets without having to pay death duties. This means a cohabiting partner could be “hit with inheritance tax at 40% on any assets over £325,000”. And some pension schemes won’t pay out a widow’s or widower’s pension to an unmarried partner.

A terminally ill person will often want to tie the knot quickly once they understand that, if they remain unmarried, their other half will be hit with inheritance tax or miss out on a pension. “People don’t realise,” Fernandes told The Times. “They think it’s nicer to live together but, financially, it’s a no-brainer” to get married.

Take the case of Ken Dodd: two days before his death in 2018, the 90-year-old comedian married his long-term partner Ann Jones at their home in Liverpool. The last-minute ceremony allowed his new bride to inherit his entire £27.8 million estate tax-free, saving her almost £11 million.

There’s no doubt that marriage and civil partnership unlocks “powerful tax benefits that are simply not available to cohabiting couples”, David Lunn of TWM Solicitors told The Telegraph. But do be mindful that a last-minute union can leave little time to update the terminally ill person’s will, which could leave other members of the family “exposed”.

Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.