Sophia Rogers looks at a decision illuminating the position on the recovery of CFA success fees in Inheritance Act 1975 awards Unless a CFA-funded claimant can recover their success fee or a contribution thereto as part of their award, the success fee constitutes a debt which may undermine the purpose of their carefully tailored, needs-based …
Continue reading "Inheritance: What is financial need?"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2021 #184The claimant was the daughter of the deceased and the defendant was the sister of the deceased. The deceased had made a will dated 13 September 2017. By that will the deceased had left £25,000 each to the claimant, the claimant’s son and another sister of the deceased. The remainder was left to the defendant.
The net estate was valued at around £245,000. The defendant stood to receive approximately £193,000 less legal fees.
In 1968 the deceased had separated from the claimant’s mother. Thereafter the claimant had a difficult relationship with the deceased. Prior to the birt...
Tara McInnes reports on a recent decision in the county court that indicates an understanding approach towards an eligible claimant with little provision and financial need The judge was keen to point out that we still have a system of testamentary freedom. To enable the courts to interfere with such freedom, it needs to be …
Continue reading "The 1975 Act: After Ilott"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2021 #183The claimant was the granddaughter of the deceased who brought a claim for reasonable financial provision out of the estate under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (1975 Act). The defendants, both children of the deceased, were the executors and beneficiaries under her will. The deceased, who had been diagnosed with vascular dementia, had fallen and broken her hip, resulting in surgery and a spell in hospital. The medical advice was that she could not return home unless care was provided. The claimant, with the agreement of the defendants, m...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2021 #183The claimants, being the children of the deceased, brought a claim for provision under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. The deceased, their father, had been diagnosed with an incurable lung disease in 2004. The claimants’ parents had divorced in 2012. Their mother remarried shortly thereafter and relocated with the claimants to Scotland. The father had maintained weekly telephone contact with the claimants for a short period, but had paid no maintenance or child support, with the mother and her new husband paying for the claimants’ priv...
Recent claims from adults under the 1975 Act abound. Laura Abbott differentiates the winners from the losers While the claimant in this case was the deceased’s granddaughter, and so claiming under s1(1)(e) as a person maintained as opposed to a child under s1(1)(c), the judge’s approach to the case and rationale mirrors that in recent …
Continue reading "The 1975 Act: Establishing genuine financial need"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2021 #182A was survived by C, his sister; H, with whom he had had a relationship; E and F, who were the daughters of A and H; B, with whom A had also had a relationship; and G, the son of A and B. C was one of the executors of A’s will. Each of A and C owned 50% of the shares in X Ltd (the company) and on A’s death C remained a director and was in control of the company. During A’s lifetime, a property (Property 1) was acquired in his name and remained so at his death.
There were three claims following A’s death: (1) H claimed to be the beneficial owner of Property 1 (the property claim); ...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Winter 2020 #181John Robinson Noble (Mr Noble) died in 2014. The plaintiff was his youngest daughter, and the first and second defendants were respectively his eldest daughter and his son. Mr Noble left a will, of which the first defendant was the sole executrix. The will provided that Mr Noble’s estate should be held in trust for such of his children as survived him by 14 days and if more than one then in equal shares. His will expressed the wish that either of his daughters be permitted to live in his dwelling house (the family home) for so long as they require, but making clear that this expression w...
Heather Conway and Sheena Grattan look at family provision, adult children and property transfers In our opinion, it would be wrong to read Noble as signalling a fundamentally different approach, given that Noble was dealing with a very different set of factual circumstances Noble v Morrison [2020] is the first reported family provision case in …
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Laura Abbott reviews the latest developments in adult claims under the Inheritance Act, as well as the controversial issue of the success fee in such claims Re H attracted further attention because it addressed the issue of whether a success fee liability due under a conditional fee agreement could form part of an award. An …
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