Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2024 #194Eric Stanley King (deceased), a divorcee, died intestate on 15 April 2021. Rule 22 of the Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987 (NCPR 1987) set out the order of priority for a grant of letters of administration on an intestacy; in this case, the persons entitled were the appellant and respondent (being the children of the deceased) and the three children of a third child who had predeceased the deceased. Where more than one person of the same degree was entitled to a grant, the court had a discretion as to which of them it should appoint as administrator. In this ...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2024 #194The deceased died intestate in 2020 with an estate worth around £120,000. He had married the claimant in January 1993, and they had a daughter, the defendant, in November 1993. They had an unhappy marriage and little family life, although they all continued to live together. In 2014, the deceased transferred the matrimonial home from his sole name to the joint names of him and the defendant as beneficial joint tenants, such that on his death his share of the property passed to the defendant. The property was worth around £450,000. In 2017, the claimant brought proceedings against the dec...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2022 #188The deceased executed his will on 15 November 2016 and died on 7 December 2016 from leukaemia. Pursuant to the will, a bequest of cars and other chattels was made to the claimant (the deceased’s son), while the defendants (the deceased’s daughter and her partner) were made executors and beneficiaries of the residuary estate. The will justified the provision to the claimant on the basis that he had become estranged from the deceased.
The claimant challenged the will on the basis of fraudulent calumny, undue influence and want of knowledge and approval. In particular, the claimant c...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2022 #186The claimant, Mr Higgins, brought a claim for reasonable provision out of the estate of the deceased, under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (the 1975 Act), in his capacity as a person who, although not a child of the deceased, was treated by the deceased as a child of the family, within the meaning of s1(1)(d) of the 1975 Act. Mr Higgins’ mother had married the deceased when he was aged nine, and he had continued to reside with the deceased after his mother and the deceased divorced, at which time the deceased had been gr...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Winter 2021 #185By her last will and testament, dated 22 February 2013, the deceased bequeathed a number of pecuniary legacies of between £5,000 and £30,000, totalling £260,000. The residue of the deceased’s estate was shared by three beneficiaries, although the main residuary beneficiary had predeceased the deceased, creating a partial intestacy. The issue before the court was whether, as a matter of statutory interpretation, s30(3) of the Administration of Estates Act (Northern Ireland) 1955 meant that the property of the deceased undisposed of by her will should be applied in the fi...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Winter 2018 #170The claim was a claim dated 5 September 2016 by the claimants as personal representatives of the late Mr Veliko Aleksic (the deceased), who died on 24 October 2014, for construction of parts of the deceased’s last will. He acquired a house in London in 1960 and a house in Cardiff in 1971.
He left a holographic will, which was undated save for bearing the year ‘2012’. It was signed but there was no attestation clause. It did not provide for the appointment of an executor. The deceased’s estate was valued at £2,750,753, including three houses, one in Montenegro, one in Cardiff, and ...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | March 2017 #167This was a claim to construe a will or, in the alternative to rectify it. Mr Michael Crowley-Milling (the deceased) died on 24 December 2012. His wife had pre-deceased him and he was survived by one niece, Mrs Lorna Joy Robinson and the children of his other niece (who had predeceased him) James Masterman and Rebecca Masterman (the next of kin). The deceased was a distinguished scientist and had decided to leave the bulk of his estate to the Royal Society.
The deceased left two wills: a Swiss will from February 2006 (the Swiss will) and an English will from October 2009 (the 2009 ...
Jonathan Shankland and Tulin Hamit investigate changes to the intestacy rules created by the Inheritance and Trustees’ Powers Act 2014 ‘The effect of the changes will be most welcomed by surviving spouses who may otherwise have found themselves encumbered with an inadequate, cumbersome and expensive-to-manage life interest, or sharing their spouse’s estate with extended relatives!’ …
Continue reading "Intestacy: A welcome update"
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