The very nature of the living means that contentious probate cases will continue to be a feature of the legal landscape year on year. As more and more individuals decide to challenge the Wills of relatives and loved ones, we can certainly learn from the what goes before. In 2018 there were a number of significant cases of contested probate which found their way into the courts.
In fact, the number of cases involving a challenge to a Will are both too numerous and too complex for full consideration here. However, by reviewing a select trio of the contentious probate claims to hit the courts in 2018, it is possible to alight on some useful nuggets of advice to help any person who is about to embark on the process of writing a Will, comparing probate solicitors, finding a fixed fee probate service or indeed pursuing any other area of law related to Wills, probate, and estate administration.
A number of recent cases involving divorce solicitors, particularly in London, have attracted attention over the issue of contentious litigation and accompanying disproportionate costs. For example, during a recent divorce case, Daga v Bangur [2018] EWFC 91, Justice Holman spoke of the ill effects of "destructive litigation" and its power to diminish the assets of divorcing parties.
The case focused on a husband's claim for a lump sum financial settlement worth between £1 million and £1.5 million.
The judge described it as "tragic" that the divorcing parties had spent more than £1 million on legal costs: around £380,000 on litigation related to child arrangements and a further £650,000 spent on litigation relating to the divorce financial settlement.
Read more: Keeping Costs Proportionate in Divorce Litigation
In an ideal world, sincerity and good faith would be at the heart of every divorce case. However, when relationships break down it often seems to bring out the worst in divorcing parties, which of course means that, in many cases, it is hard to achieve anything other than agitation, contention and acrimony.
And again in an ideal world, divorce lawyers would help divorcing parties understand that although their situation may look less than ideal, the best way to achieve divorce settlement goals is to act reasonably and litigate in good faith.
This message was one of the take homes from comments recently made by leading family law judge Mr Justice Francis when he said that "people who adopt unreasonable positions in litigation cannot simply do so confident that there will be an indemnity for the costs of the litigation behaviour, however unreasonable it may have been".
Read more: Unreasonable Litigation, Settlement Offers and Costs
Buying a home, especially your first, is one of life's major milestones. While it's exciting and aspirational to be a house-buyer, the process can be fraught with pitfalls and problems.
For some buyers, a major problem is emotion: your heart takes over when house hunting and you fail to see all the issues with a property and the land upon which it is built. Some things may be fairly easily rectified, such as removing an olive green bathroom suite, or a clearing a garden full of brambles, but there are some parts of property law which can be a little more thorny. For example, restrictive covenants.
In October of the year, Clive Shaw bought a propriety estoppel claim against his aging parents.
He claimed that his father had promised since 1978 that he would inherit the family dairy farm when the parents died. However, following a number of arguments between the parents and the son over his “workshy” attitude and his choice of partner, he was written out of their Wills in 2017.
Passing judgement yesterday, the Judge Linwood said
“There was a family expectation that Clive, as the eldest child and only son, would inherit the farm – in the sense of it being a family business – not purely as an asset, but as a working farm, to be inherited by Clive as a farmer.
Clive was promised the farm would be his inheritance from about 1978 onwards, but those assurances were conditional upon Clive working properly on the farm in the manner of a dedicated, long-term farmer."
However, Clive was not sufficiently interested and his lifestyle choices were such that he did not want to take on the farm and dedicate himself to it, as his interests were elsewhere, in driving and engineering.”
Read more: Dairy Farmer’s Son who hates cows loses his Propriety Estoppel claim for the family farm.
