Continue reading "Proprietary estoppel remedies: Expectation and acceleration"
Guest & anr v Guest [2023] WTLR 431
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2023 #191A father made repeated promises to his son that he would inherit an undefined part of a farm, sufficient to enable him to operate a viable farming business on it, after the death of his parents. Relying on that promise, the son spent the best part of his working life on the farm, working at very low wages and accommodated in a farm cottage. After a deterioration in the relationship between the father and son, it proved no longer possible for the two to work together, and the son therefore moved out, and the father cut him out of his will.
The son claimed an interest in the farm as...
Morley v Morley & anr [2023] WTLR 299
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2023 #190In 2007, the claimant gave her father (Ray) a sum of £150,000. The payment was a contribution towards a house (the property) that Ray intended to purchase with his wife, the first defendant.
The claimant alleged an agreement by which, in exchange for the payment of £150,000, Ray would leave his half-share of the property to the claimant and her brother.
The purchase of the property was completed using a TP1 transfer form. The form was signed by the third-party transferor and the box was ticked providing for the transferees, Ray and the first defendant, to hold the property ...
Hughes v Pritchard & ors [2021] WTLR 893
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2021 #184The deceased (E) died in March 2017 aged 84. The deceased’s last will was executed in July 2016 with the assistance of solicitors and after a capacity assessment was obtained from his GP. At the time of making his will, the deceased was suffering from moderately severe dementia and was grieving from the death of his eldest son (S) who had taken his own life in September 2015. The will changed the provisions of an earlier will in favour of the claimant (C), also a son of E, inter alia, leaving 58 acres of farmland to C.
The defendants were the sister, widow and eldest son ...
Guest & anr v Guest WTLR(w) 2021-05
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Web OnlyThe respondent (who had been the claimant at first instance) was the eldest son of the two appellants. He had worked on the family farm full-time for some 33 years, until his relationship with his parents deteriorated. The respondent then brought proceedings against the appellants seeking a declaration of his entitlement to a beneficial interest in the farm on the basis of an alleged proprietary estoppel. At first instance, the court found in his favour, concluding that the first appellant had consistently and over time led the respondent to believe that he would inherit a sufficient sta...
Horsford v Horsford [2020] WTLR 519
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2020 #179The claimant and her husband owned and farmed College Farm in Cambridgeshire. They had three children – two daughters and one son. The defendant, who was their son, owned and farmed the adjoining Whitleather Lodge Farm and had joined his parents’ farming partnership on an equal basis.
After separating from her husband in 2011, the claimant moved into a property which had previously produced a rental income and she was concerned to secure her financial independence. This led to the claimant, her ex-husband and the defendant setting in motion the steps required for a partnership agr...
Probate: Promises, promises
Continue reading "Probate: Promises, promises"