Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2021 #183Alan 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...
Sarah Bolt examines the current approach to deciding what is a valid deathbed gift This case was a prime example of circumstances in which a deathbed gift ought not to be allowed to validate otherwise ineffective testamentary dispositions. Deathbed gifts are back in the spotlight with the recent decision of Davey v Bailey on 26 …
Continue reading "Donatio mortis causa: An end to deathbed gifts?"
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A recent case shows the danger of conflict of interest when there is an apparent deathbed gift. Siân Hodgson reports ‘Each case will be considered on its facts but what is emphasised in this case is that where a donor has a fluctuating state of health, what is key is that imminent death from a …
Continue reading "Estate administration: For whom do you act?"
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Simon Morris reviews a perennial classic on Inheritance Act claims Ross on Inheritance Act Claims (4th ed) Author: Sidney Ross Published by: Sweet & Maxwell Publication date: 22 September 2017 ISBN: 9780414060814 £199.00 Over the course of recent years I have come to consider Ross on Inheritance Act Claims as an indispensable guide to a …
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Edward Cumming and Timothy Sherwin bring the doctrine of deathbed gifts up to date ‘It is in the very nature of a donatio mortis causa (DMC) that it is conditional on the donor’s eventual death, and that it is the donor’s death which perfects the gift.’ In this article, we consider donationes mortis causa (DMCs), …
Continue reading "Donationes Mortis Causa: Where there’s no will, there’s a way"
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Adam Carvalho and Alice Kendle explore the slippery and amphibious doctrine of donatio mortis causa ‘Unless the donor revokes the gift before death, when the donor dies their personal representative holds the property on trust for the donee.’ The case of King v The Chiltern Dog Rescue [2015] (King) has clarified – and restricted – …
Continue reading "Deathbed Gifts: At a crossroads"
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