Probate – Page 4 – Charles Cooper

Davies v. Watts & Anor [2024] EWHC 1177 (Ch)

Where the medical evidence is inconclusive, the ‘clear and straightforward evidence of capacity’ from a number of lay witnesses is relied upon to find that the testator had testamentary capacity: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2024/1177
Read more: Davies v. Watts & Anor [2024] EWHC 1177 (Ch)
Rea v. Rea & Ors [2024] EWCA Civ 169

No undue influence where coercion has not been shown to have been ‘more probable than any other possibility’, in this case the ‘aspects of… [the Claimant’s] evidence to which the Judge drew attention were consistent with the (inherently more probable) possibility of… having merely sought to persuade her mother to make the… Will’: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2024/169
Read more: Rea v. Rea & Ors [2024] EWCA Civ 169
Kenig v. Thomson Snell & Passmore LLP [2024] EWCA Civ 15

It is open to a beneficiary to challenge legal fees, even though already paid from estate funds, under s.71(3) Solicitors Act 1974, but ‘fully informed consent by the executor (if proved) is likely to be a major consideration, which in many cases may prove to be determinative’: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2024/15
Read more: Kenig v. Thomson Snell & Passmore LLP [2024] EWCA Civ 15

Charles Cooper | Barrister