Tolley v No Defendant [2023] WTLR 1187

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2023 #192

Caroline Fisher was an only child and her parents were deceased. In September 2020 she made a will appointing the claimant, her friend, as her executor. In January 2022, she drove into the sea and had not been seen since. The claimant issued a CPR Part 8 claim under the Presumption of Death Act 2013 for a declaration of presumption of death before the will had been proved. Section 1(5) of the 2013 Act provides that the court must refuse to hear the application if:

  1. (a) it is made by someone other than a missing person’s spouse, civil partne...

Jennison & anr v Jennison [2022] WTLR 1027

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2022 #188

The claimant at first instance was the widow of the deceased and the personal representative of his estate. The defendants were the deceased’s brother and sister-in-law. The claimant sought declaratory relief, an order for sale and compensation flowing from the defendants’ alleged breach of trust in dealing with land. The defendants defended the claim on the basis of a lack of standing as the claim form had been issued before the foreign grant of probate was resealed in the UK. The defendants appealed the refusal to grant them summary judgment or strike out on this basis.

Held (d...

Morton v Morton & anr WTLR(w) 2022-05

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Haastrup v Okorie [2016] EWHC 12 (Ch)

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | June 2016 #160

This was an application to strike out, or alternatively, for summary judgment in relation to, a claim in relation to the estate of Captain Haastrup brought by the claimant.

Captain Haastrup died on 8 October 2012 in England. On 20 January 2014, the claimant obtained letters of administration in Nigeria. On 20 June 2014, these letters were resealed in Leeds District Probate Registry. It subsequently emerged that the claimant had been injuncted by the Nigerian court to restrain him from relying on the letters of administration or from ‘parading himself as in any way as the administr...