Joyce and Sybil Burden

Sisters face burden of proof

“If we were lesbians we would have all the rights in the world.”

Sisters Joyce and Sybil Burden shared a house together but dreaded the day when one of them died and the other faced a steep inheritance-tax bill. They wanted siblings to have the same standing as married couples and civil partners in respect of inheritance tax - and they fought long and hard to change the law along those lines.

They were middle-aged when they entered the fray, and by the time their case was decided by the European Court of Human Rights in April 2008, they were octogenarians (Joyce was born in 1918 and Sybil in 1926). Advanced age did not help: the 15-2 vote was decidedly against them.

Instead of inheriting tax-free, the survivor would face IHT on an estate consisting of a main house, 30 acres of land, and outbuildings. The total value in 2008 was c.£800,000.

In the beginning

In the mid-1960s, the two sisters moved back into their family home in Ogbourne St George near Marlborough, in Wiltshire. They then built a new home costing £7,000, a substantial amount at the time.

Initially they shared the property with another sister, three brothers and two aunts, all of whom died.

For many years the Burden sisters were concerned about their eventual IHT dilemma: they wrote letters to the Chancellor of the Exchequer urging a change in the tax laws to allow sisters to inherit much in the way spouses inherit exempt of IHT. They sent letters every year - starting in 1976.

When change did come to the tax laws, it was not the amendment they sought. In 2004, registered civil partners - unmarried partners of the same sex - started enjoying the same privileges as spouses regarding IHT.

In her complaint about lesbians having advantages denied to siblings, Joyce was also reported as saying, “But we are sisters, and it seems we have no rights at all.”

She may have been mistaken. Although their plight has aroused widespread sympathy, a number of solicitors and financial planners noted that the sisters could have solved their potential tax troubles with fairly routine tax and estate planning.