Costs: Action not to be taken lightly

Laura Abbott sets out the key principles concerning costs and contentious probate proceedings Any claim should be approached on the basis that costs follow the event. Parties must therefore be willing, and able, to pay their own costs and those of their opponent if they are unsuccessful. Goodwin v Avison [2021] is a useful précis …
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Mundil-Williams v Mundil-Williams & ors WTLR(w) 2021-11

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Testamentary intentions: Presuming too much

A challenge to a will on the grounds of want of knowledge and approval where a compos mentis testator has read a professionally prepared will may seem doomed. Daisy Brown analyses a rare successful case A testator who has waited 24 years to change his will and then inexplicably gives two sets of contradictory instructions …
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Will validity: Losing face

Will cases involving the allegation of fraud are on the rise. Laura Abbott explores the legal principles behind the latest decision With the ability of experts to detect even the slightest of differences in paper and ink, and the evidence available from technology such as CCTV and social media, as these cases have shown, it …
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Re Clitheroe [2021] WTLR 449

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2021 #183

The claimant (C) and the defendant (D) were the surviving children of the deceased. Her other child, E, had died of cancer without children. Although the deceased had been close to D and D’s daughter, this changed after a disagreement between D and the deceased about E’s medication, when the deceased threatened that she would not forgive or speak to D again. The Deputy Master found that D was not responsible for the estrangement and that the deceased had irrationally maintained that it was D who cut her out rather than the other way around. E’s death had a profound effe...

Goss-Custard & anr v Templeman & ors [2020] WTLR 441

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2020 #179

Lord Templeman, who was a former member of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, was the father of the second and third defendants and the father-in-law of the first defendant. In 1996 he was remarried to a distant cousin, Sheila Edworthy, and moved home to live with her in a property called Mellowstone, Exeter, which she had inherited from her second husband, John Edworthy. Following his second marriage, Lord Templeman became very much part of his wife’s family and developed close bonds with her step-daughters, the claimants. On 3 December 2004 Lord Templeman and his wife made c...

Todd v Parsons & ors [2020] WTLR 305

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2020 #178

T died in 2009, aged 96 years, leaving two adult children, her son, who was the claimant (C), and her daughter, who was the third defendant (D3). By a will document dated 25 September 2008, T appointed the first defendant (D1) and the second defendant (D2) as her executors. D1 was the daughter of D3 and T’s only grandchild. D2 was the solicitor who drafted the will document. Both remained neutral in the proceedings.

In June 2017, C brought a claim for probate in solemn form of the will document and for an order removing D1 and D2 as executors and appointing an independent personal...

Probate: Promises, promises

The parable of the prodigal son has resonance in modern probate disputes. Alex Troup discusses ‘The judge’s finding that the deceased had deliberately broken the agreement to equalise the balance between her two children explained the difference between her old will and the disputed will.’ The parable of the prodigal son has all the makings …
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Wills: A risky business

Laura Abbott sets out what needs to be considered when challenging the validity of a will prepared by a professional ‘The court will require the strongest of evidence to find a will to be invalid and it is extremely difficult to succeed where the medical records and solicitors’ evidence are all supportive of validity.’ As …
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Parsonage v Parsonage & ors WTLR(w) 2020-02

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Web Only