Skillett v Skillett [2022] WTLR 679
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2022 #187Charles Skillett (Mr Skillett) and his wife had four children. Mr Skillett owned a smallholding and, on 7 December 2010, received a market appraisal valuing the smallholding at £50,000. On 19 May 2011, Mr Skillett and his wife made mirror wills which provided, in summary, on the death of the first spouse, for the surviving spouse to take everything absolutely, and on the death of the surviving spouse, for the smallholding to be given to their eldest son, the other three children to receive £50,000 and the residuary estate to be split equally among all four children. Mrs Skillett passed a...
Gregg & anr v Pigott & ors [2012] EWHC 732 (Ch)
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | July/August 2012 #121The court was asked to construe the phrase ‘statutory next of kin’ in a settlement that was executed in 1948. It was common ground that, under the classic rules of construction, that phrase would have excluded adopted children because the intestacy rules in 1948 did not benefit adopted children. However, the adopted children argued that they were entitled to capital and income under the trust in preference to their distant cousins who would have benefited under the intestacy rules as enacted in 1948. The adopted children argued that to prevent them benefiting would be a breac...