The England & Wales Court of Appeal has allowed a woman’s claim for reasonable provision from her mother’s estate, even though she was not dependent on her mother and had been specifically and carefully disinherited by her.
Read the full story at the STEP Journal here
Source: Step Journal
Probate expert Professor Lesley King analyses the two recent appeals involving the RSPCA: the Gill case regarding the validity of an elderly lady’s will, and the Sharp case regarding construction of a will leaving a nil-rate-band legacy.
Sources:
STEP
The Law Gazette
In support of Lewis-Manning Hospice, local solicitors are donating their time to prepare standard wills free of charge in return for a donation to the hospice. Any sum is welcome, but suggested minimum donations are £75 for a single will and £110 for a pair of mirror wills. If your will is not standard, the solicitor will inform you and agree a fee before going ahead. There is no obligation to leave a gift to Lewis-Manning in your will but the hospice is deeply grateful to all the people who support them in this way.
‘Make a Will Week’ falls in June, which is National Hospice Awareness Month – a very important time in the hospice calendar when, as well as trying to raise much needed funds, activities are focussed on raising the profile of hospices and the vital role they play in the provision of palliative care services within the local community.
If you are interested in having your will drawn up or updated during ‘Make a Will Week’, please contact Gillian to make an appointment.
Opened in 1992, Lewis-Manning Hospice is Poole’s local voluntary hospice for adults providing the highest standard of specialist palliative nursing care completely FREE of charge to over 650 local people living with cancer and other life threatening and life limiting illnesses. After the contracted contribution from the NHS Bournemouth and Poole, the monthly running costs of the hospice exceed £50,000, for which the hospice relies on the support of the local community and fundraising initiatives.
For further information, please contact Stephanie Thorne on 01202 701000, email legacies@lewis-manning.co.uk or visit www.lewis-manning.co.uk / www.timetocareappeal
The Law Society warn that high care home fees risk leaving the elderly with little or nothing to bequeath to loved ones in their wills, warns the Law Society.
Recent Age Concern/Help the Aged estimates put average care home fees at £470 per week, prompting the Law Society to warn that many wills could need reviewing as care residents’ assets continue to deplete.
Law Society President, Robert Heslett, says:
“There is a danger that many elderly people are dipping into their life savings, selling their homes or other assets to pay care home fees. In many instances, they will have asked their solicitor to include those assets in their will to be left to family and loved ones. However, there could be nothing left once their care home fees are paid for.
“While plans are afoot to address the rising cost of care, the Law Society is very concerned that not enough people are updating their wills to not only accommodate these fees but also to take into account any knock on effects of the recession.”
The Law Society is urging anyone with a will to review them regularly to take into account a change in circumstance.
Robert Heslett adds: “A regular review of a will with your solicitor can ensure that family, friends and any charities are still able to receive something. It is worth asking your solicitor to include a ‘plan B’ in case your home has been sold and cannot be passed on, at least that way, if you are forced to sell up to pay for care or for any other reason, the intended recipients of your estate receive something else.”
Lord Hunt’s report on regulation of legal services, published this week, urges regulators to restrict will-writing and probate work to qualified lawyers, according to STEP.
“Most of our fellow citizens would surely be taken aback to learn that anyone can currently set himself or herself up as a will-writer and also that some aspects of probate activity can take place outside the regulatory net”, the report says.
Hunt notes that there is no effective complaints or compensation procedure in place for either will-writing or probate, while indemnity insurance is often either inadequate or absent. The Legal Services Act 2007 does specify probate as a reserved service, but only in “the preparation of any papers”. Thus, says Hunt, a solicitor could delegate all ancillary activities to non-regulated individuals.
Read the full article at STEP here
A story from the regional newspaper, Midlands Express and Star, highlight the danger of relying on promises.
“Two daughters who said their father promised them his house when he died – only to leave it to his new wife in his final will – have failed in a High Court bid for inheritance.
Averil Macdonald, aged 51, and her sister Deborah Bannigan, 48, said they gave their father Joseph Frost £100 a month for 20 years in the belief he would leave them his house in Harborough Drive, Aldridge. But instead, the widower, a popular man known locally as the Mayor of Aldridge for his community involvement, wrote a will soon after he married his second wife Marion in 2002. He left his £231,000 estate to her and his daughters got nothing.
At the High Court, lawyers for the sisters said they were entitled to the house under the legal principle of “proprietary estoppel” – claiming he had made a firm promise to them that the property would be theirs. Ms Macdonald, who lives in Winchester and is a professor at Reading University, and Ms Bannigan, of Rugby, both agreed that, if they won the case, Marion would have to be provided for, but said they should get whatever was left of Harborough Drive when their step-mother died.
But Judge Geraldine Andrews rejected the sisters’ case yesterday, and said monthly payments they had made to their father – and their mother when she was still alive – were made “solely in return for an advance on their inheritance”. The judge added that she was “disappointed” that both sides had not been able to reach a compromise in the case.”
Read the full story at the Express and Star here.
According to recent figures released by the Court Service, the number of High Court cases involving disputes over Wills and inheritance has risen by 175%.
Shoosmiths Solicitors have published a press release in which the increase is blamed on “the suffering fortunes of many families …
Complicated family relationships and the impact of the global recession have accelerated the number of claims people are making…
These types of disputes can be avoided if people have a properly drafted and up-to-date Will”
Read the full article here