Alan and Margaret Bailey were a married couple who died each aged 71 within a few months of each other in 2019, leaving no children. Each left a will dated 28 May 2009 appointing the other as sole executor and sole beneficiary. After Mrs Bailey had passed away Mr Bailey attended a solicitor to make a new will, but it was not executed before he also died. The gift to his wife under his 2009 will failed, as she had predeceased him, and passed under the law of intestacy to his next of kin.
Mrs Bailey’s sister and brother, the claimants, claimed that the couple had made gifts of...
June Margaret Fairbrother (deceased) lived at 12 Kingcroft Road, Harpenden (property) with a number of cats and dogs, of which she was very fond, as she had no children. It was common knowledge within her family that she intended to leave her estate to animal charities which she supported. By a will dated 20 March 1998 (last will) the deceased left her residuary estate to seven such charities (charities). The claimant, who was a nephew, came to live with the deceased, when she was 78 years old, in the summer of 2007. The arrangement was that he would care for his aunt in return for a hom...
The deceased, June Fairbrother, (D), a retired policewoman, made a will in March 1998 leaving legacies to friends and family, the 3rd to 14th defendants ,the executors and legatees and the residue to the 15th to 21st defendants, animal charities (the charities). In June 2007 D’s nephew, Mr King, the claimant (C) had a conversation with her. She was increasingly elderly and frightened of going into a home, and he agreed to move in with her to look after her. He had spent some time in prison as a result of an offence under the Companies Act and was living in the property of a busi...
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On 6 August 2003, Cheryle Vallee (the claimant/respondent) visited her 93-year-old father Wlodzimierz Bogusz at his home. Ms Vallee, who lived abroad, told her father that she planned to visit next at Christmas. He replied that he might not be alive by then as he did not expect to live much longer. He handed over the deeds for his unregistered property, a house key, his war medals and a photograph album. The main asset of the estate was his property.
In December 2003 Mr Bogusz died intestate. Ms Vallee had been fostered and then later adopted after her mother and father’s m...