Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero is, to the best of my knowledge, the only pop song to feature a contentious probate dispute (Reader: if you know another, do please tell). She sings: ‘I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money She thinks I left them in the will The family gathers ’round and reads […]
Category Archives: Validity disputes
26
Sep
Sep
District Judge Chloë Phillips has given judgment in Coady v Coady PT-2023-BHM-000025 (Business & Property Courts in Birmingham (Probate)), determining as a preliminary issue whether a Covid‑era “garden signing” satisfied s.9 of the Wills Act 1837. The court held that it did not, with the result that the will of 25 April 2020 was invalid. This […]
06
Feb
Feb
At the height of the pandemic, one of the issues that much preoccupied private client practitioners was the difficulty of witnessing wills whilst observing social distancing rules – particularly for testators who were shielding or self-isolating. This lead to a variety of inventive witnessing arrangements, such as that described by HHJ Tindal in Baker […]
02
Jun
Jun
It was my great pleasure to co-author this article with Juliet Brook. Juliet is a Principal Lecturer in Law at the University of Portsmouth, specialising in property law. Her research focuses on the law of succession and she has written a series of detailed articles on testamentary dispensing powers, which you can find here. This article […]
01
Jun
Jun
My last two posts have looked at the issue of will-making during the coronavirus pandemic, and the difficulties of socially distant witnessing, and some of the proposals for reform of the law of wills and the options for a temporary solution to the difficulties faced by testators during the pandemic. In this post, I address […]
14
Feb
Feb
The following is something of a pick and mix selection of contentious probate disputes of interest that were decided last year. James v James [2018] EWHC 43 (Ch) The claimant in James v James, in addition to bringing a proprietary estoppel claim, challenged the last will of his father, Charles, on the grounds of lack of […]
12
Jul
Jul
Charles Hollander QC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge has recently given judgment in Gupta v Gupta [2018] EWHC 1353 (Ch), a case in which the validity of the deceased’s last Will was challenged solely on the basis that she lacked knowledge and approval of the contents. Whilst it doesn’t break any new ground on […]
16
May
May
This is Part 2 of an occasional series on tricky probate problems and how to solve them. In Part 1, I looked at the issue of limited grants. In this post I will look at the options that are available where a caveat has been entered, warned, and an appearance entered. Usually, in these circumstances, […]
11
Apr
Apr
This is the first in a series of short posts looking at tricky problems that can arise in probate disputes. In this post, I will take a look at a common problem – what to do where a caveat has been lodged in order to prevent a grant of probate being taken, but there is […]
06
Mar
Mar
HHJ Matthews costs ruling following the trial of the proprietary estoppel and probate claim in James v James & Ors [2018] EWHC 242 (Ch) (see my post on the substantive issues here) has been published and provides a helpful reminder of the contentious probate costs rules and the consequences of failing to follow the prescribed […]
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