A High Court ruling means that a woman who married her long term partner and fiancé four days before he died from cancer is not entitled to inherit his entire estate.
The couple had grown up respectively in numbers 31 and 40 Ascal Ribh but, while in a relationship from 1996, did not live together until 2014 because they were both caring for their mothers. Mr McPartlan had appointed his sister Linda Dinneen and his brother Patrick McPartlan as executors of his estate.
While Ms Graham was made to flatly assert in her affidavits marriage was not contemplated in June 2018 when Mr McPartlan made his will, that issue was for the court to decide, he said. That was confirmed by instructions he had previously given to his solicitor in July 2011, after the couple’s engagement.
The 2011 engagement of the couple was the agreement of each to marry the other at some time in the future which agreement endures until the engagement is broken off or the marriage occurs, he held.Earlier, the judge noted Ms Graham’s sworn evidence was, after his mother’s death in 2014, Mr McPartlan would raise marriage with her but they had not reached agreement they would get married. Whatever about Ms Graham, the evidence was Mr McPartlan was “enthusiastic to set a date”, the judge said.