My elderly father has had a close companion for the last ten years. She started out as a housekeeper and although he still pays her for services she has also become a close friend. They do not live together. Just lately I heard from someone else that she has been saying that she is my father’s adult interdependent partner and will be able to claim from his estate when he passes away. Is this right?

The Adult Interdependent Relationships Act provides that there is no relationship of interdependence where one person provides another with domestic support and care for a fee or other favours. This would also be true if the person providing the service did so on behalf of an agency or government. If this was the sole reason upon which the friend was claiming to be an adult interdependent partner of your father, she would therefore fail in her claim.

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