Wills & Trusts Law Reports | March 2014 #137Mr Alfred Rawlings and his wife Maureen Rawlings instructed a solicitor to draft their wills in mirror form. Each spouse intended to leave his or her entire estate to the survivor of them, but provided that, should the other have predeceased or survived them for less than a month, their estates should be left to the appellant, who was not related to them but whom they treated as their son. Mr and Mrs Rawlings’ solicitor attended them on 17 May 1999 to enable a due execution of draft wills containing these provisions. By an oversight, their solicitor gave each spouse the other’s draft wil...
The Court of Appeal’s decision in Marley v Rawlings was the correct one, as Alexander Learmonth reports ‘The existing cases on s20 of the Administration of Justice Act 1982 have already taken rectification about as far as it should go; and there is no scope for using the section to correct other sorts of errors, …
Continue reading "Swapped Wills: Signing your life away"
This post is only available to members.