A man has been told he’s liable to pay costs of £44,000 because of his unreasonable behaviour in a family dispute over his stepfather’s will. The case involved the stepson and the stepfather’s daughter and son. The stepson had looked after the father’s finances in the last 12 months of his life. Following the father’s
A disinherited son has failed to prove that his father didn’t understand what he was doing in the final weeks of his life and his will should therefore be declared invalid. The High Court heard that the father had originally made a will in 2008 that divided his estate between his son and his daughter.
A woman has failed to have herself appointed as the administrator of her late mother’s estate because the High Court considered that she was untrustworthy. A man claiming to be the deceased’s husband was also rejected as an administrator with the court preferring to appoint someone independent from outside the family. The case involved a
January is the time for making resolutions to give ourselves a fresh start for the New Year. It’s good to take stock and decide to eat less or exercise more but there’s so much more we could be doing to improve our lives and protect ourselves for the future. Here are three New Year Resolutions
More than 6 out of 10 people prefer to have a qualified solicitor to write their will so they can be confident that it’s done properly, according to new research. A survey carried out by Will Aid, the organisation that encourages people to leave some of their estate to charity, found that 62% of people
Medical advances and better health education mean people are enjoying longer and more active lives than ever before. There are still risks, however. With more people living into their eighties and nineties, there are a rising number of dementia cases. According to the Alzheimer’s Society, more than a million people in the UK will be
A family have succeeded in their battle to overturn their brother’s will, which left nearly all his estate to his live-in carer. The issue arose after the brother was involved in an accident that resulted in him having to spend time in a mental health hospital. He made a will dividing his assets between his
A dispute over a pub that was the main asset of a family trust has been settled in the High Court. The trust had been set up a by a woman who named all her children as equal beneficiaries. One of her sons ran the pub as his main business; his siblings had no involvement.
The number of applications for lasting powers of attorney (LPA) has doubled in the last two years, according to research carried out by the Times newspaper. It says half a million LPAs were set up last year by people seeking to protect their interests in case they develop illnesses like dementia at some point in
The number of family disputes over wills continues to rise according to new research. A report in the Times newspaper says there was an 11% increase last year in the number of people challenging their parents’ wills in the High Court. It’s thought that an increasing number of cases are also being settled out of