Putting Your Will at The Top of Your To-Do List Matters

Over two-thirds of the UK’s adult population haven’t made a Will. What’s more, over 1.5m people have voided their Wills without realising, by getting married. Worryingly, recent data from a Royal London survey also shows that 5.4m of us wouldn’t know where to start and almost two-thirds of parents don’t have a Will or have…

Help to Buy Equity Loan Schemes: Old & New

The government’s Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme has offered a helping hand to many during the COVID-19 crisis. However, they may have stepped in back in July to help those in need by extending the build deadline, but it’s clear that a further extension of this scheme isn’t on the cards. Instead, the government’s…

Accuracy Matters When Leaving Legacies to Charities

Leaving Legacies – Knipe v British Racing Drivers’ Motor Sport Charity & others When it comes to leaving legacies to charities, it’s not uncommon to find drafting errors in a Will. It might be that the charity no longer exists when the person dies, or the recipient isn’t correctly named. The recent case of Knipe…

Rearranging Your Inheritance & Deeds of Variation

A deed of variation is not a euphemism for rewriting someone’s Will after they’ve died. It’s a document that legally allows the beneficiaries some flexibility to rearrange their inheritance or change the distribution of the estate. This device, sometimes known as a deed of family arrangement, can be useful if a Will doesn’t take account…

Probate Registry Delays

Probate Registry delays is a subject we’ve discussed many times in the last couple of years. In 2017, the proposed hike in probate fees caused a flurry of applications and subsequent delays. The centralisation and digitalisation of the Probate Registry itself further compounded the problem. However, it still seems that the process that should take…

Siblings Fight Over Fabricated Copy Will

Photocopied Will – Face v Cunningham & Anor [2020] EWHC 3119 A recent contentious probate claim brought by Rebeca Face against the Estate of her late father, Donald Face, was dismissed by High Court Judge David Hodge QC as ‘totally without merit’, based on a ‘fabricated document’. Rebeca’s siblings argued that the photocopied Will submitted…

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