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Under Section 58A(6) of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 , a success fee payable as part of a contingent fee arrangement cannot be included in costs payable by the other party in litigation. The Supreme Court recently ruled on whether Section 58A(6)...
The son of a farmer whose final will disinherited him has succeeded in his proprietary estoppel claim and his claim for reasonable financial provision under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 . For a claim of proprietary...
A man who successfully challenged his mother's final will is likely to recover the lion's share of his legal costs after the High Court ruled that his brother, who attempted to uphold the will's validity, should pay his costs on the indemnity basis . In...
When disputes arise as to the validity of wills, the evidence of the deceased's solicitors can be crucial. In a recent High Court case concerning whether a woman had capacity to revoke her will , the Court attached considerable importance to the evidence of...
A woman who was left just £1 when her stepfather passed away has failed in her challenge to the validity of his final will. The stepfather had formed a close friendship with a woman he had originally hired as a cleaner in 2011. They shared an interest...
In certain circumstances, a person who has unlawfully killed another is precluded from benefiting as a consequence of their death, a rule known as the forfeiture rule and defined in Section 1(1) of the Forfeiture Act 1982 . However, Section 2 of the Act...
The High Court recently upheld a claim that an elderly man's final will was invalid on the grounds that he lacked testamentary capacity. The man and his wife had made mirror wills in 1985. After their eldest son sadly died in 2007, they made new mirror...
The High Court has recently ruled that a man is entitled to benefit under a family trust despite finding that he was not the biological child of the settlor. The trust had been set up by a businessman in 2003 and included as its beneficiaries 'the...
The High Court has ruled that a businessman's final will, which left most of his estate to his two youngest children and largely disinherited his two eldest children, was invalid. The businessman had been diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2010. Before making...
A woman and her ex-husband who allegedly lost substantial funds belonging to the woman's mother have been ordered by a judge to pay back the missing money. After the mother died in 2019, at the age of 86, the woman's sister brought proceedings in an effort...
