Dryden v Young & ors [2024] WTLR 843

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2024 #196

The deceased made a will dated 26 May 2016. The will gifted the residue of the deceased’s estate in equal shares to 15 charitable beneficiaries. The construction of seven of those gifts was in doubt.

The gifts in question had been carried over from the deceased’s previous wills, of which only one had been located. Will files did not survive and the drafting solicitor had little recollection of what the deceased had intended. There was little evidence of charitable gifting made by the deceased in life.

The probate value of the deceased’s estate was £1.48m and each one-fiftee...

Phillips v RSPB & ors [2012] EWHC 618 (Ch)

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | June 2012 #120

Vera Gwendoline Spear (the testator) died on 5 January 2007 leaving a will dated 29 August 1997 (the will). Apart from a specific bequest of the testator’s pet parrot the will left the entirety of the testator’s estate on trust to her executors to be divided in equal shares between the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Peoples Dispensary for Sick Animals, Monkey World Ltd and ‘the Owl Sanctuary Crow Ringwood Hampshire’. The value of the deceased’s residuary estate was approximately £260,000. The claimant was the testator’s sole executor an...