BH v JH [2024] WTLR 391
Summer 2024 #195The applicant was the deputy and brother of P, who was represented by the Official Solicitor. P had a lifelong learning disability and the presumption of capacity was displaced. The application was for the variation of a statutory will made in 2008 on behalf of P. There was no dispute as to the terms of the proposed variation or that it was in the best interests of P.
The 2008 statutory will provided for the creation of a discretionary trust for a period of two years less one day, of £1m plus P’s home (worth £600,000) and chattels, in favour of four categories of beneficiaries inc...
BH v JH (costs) [2024] WTLR 403
Summer 2024 #195A deputy had made an application to vary a statutory will and disputed that carers and unidentified charities needed to be served and notified of the same. The Official Solicitor made an application to resolve the dispute on service and the court determined, as argued by the Official Solicitor, that the rules required service of the variation application on carers and unidentified charities but that service on the carers could be dispensed with. The Official Solicitor made an application for the costs of the service issue.
Held:
- (1) Each case must be considered on i...
F v R [2023] WTLR 137
Spring 2023 #190R had a lifelong significant disability and lacked capacity. His estate at the time of the application comprised income from state benefits. The total benefit income was £60,293.48 of which £52,381.60 was means-tested. R’s mother had a cousin, T, who passed away leaving their residuary estate to R absolutely. The bequest was in the region of £400,000-£600,000 which would have reduced R’s means-tested benefit entitlement to nil.
Proceedings were brought by F for approval of a deed of settlement which would result in the sum instead being left on a disabled person’s trust for the be...
The Public Guardian v RI & ors [2022] WTLR 1133
Autumn 2022 #188The court had to determine whether the donor (RD) under a lasting power of attorney for property and financial affairs executed in 2009 (the LPA) had had the capacity to execute it. RD had a learning disability and chronic schizophrenia for which he continued to receive treatment. The LPA was purportedly executed on 17 December 2009 by RD, who appointed his brothers (RI and RO) and his mother to be his attorneys. The LPA complied with the requisite formalities. At the time RD was living with his mother, but following her death in 2015 he was moved to a care home where he continued to liv...
Kambli v AR & anr [2022] WTLR 221
Spring 2022 #186P had had a series of professional deputies, each seeking to be discharged on the basis of an irretrievable breakdown in relations with P’s family, particularly AR, P’s father.
Earlier proceedings in the Court of Protection (see [2019] EWCOP 15) concluded with an order appointing K as property and affairs deputy for P. By an application dated 13 August 2020, K applied to be discharged as deputy, and for the appointment of another panel deputy instead. That application was refused on paper in October 2020, but K sought reconsideration of his application. On 10 December 2020 the cou...
LCR v SC & ors [2021] WTLR 229
Spring 2021 #182An 85-year-old woman (KC) executed two lasting powers of attorney (LPAs), one for the management of her property and affairs, and the other for welfare decision-making. She had been assessed, eight days prior to execution of the LPAs, by a specialist mental health practitioner as having capacity to execute the LPAs notwithstanding a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Dementia. Both LPAs appointed all four of KC’s daughters as her attorneys. One daughter (LCR) declined to execute the LPAs, maintaining at the time that KC lacked the requisite capacity to grant the LPAs.
LCR issued an applicat...
Re P [2021] WTLR 335
Spring 2021 #182P, before his stroke, was an enterprising businessman who had made a will ten years ago by which he made provision through two trusts for his son, X. By a letter of wishes he indicated that a trust structure had been provided because of concerns that outright inheritance would be contrary to his interests. P was considering making a new will to reflect the changed position of his companies when the stroke supervened, as a result of which he lost the capacity to execute a will. Consequently, M and H made an application for authority to execute a statutory will on behalf of P and, within t...
Re LMS [2020] WTLR 1345
Winter 2020 #181The applicant was the mother and an attorney of LMS, a 21 year old who had been assessed on 11 July 2020 as lacking capacity to make financial decisions. LMS’s grandfather had died, having made a will under which 30% of his residuary estate was held in trust for LMS contingently on attaining the age of 25. LMS was in receipt of a means-tested benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, and her placement in a specialist residential college was funded by the local authority, the residential component of which was also means tested. Her right to receive those means-tested benefits would ceas...
Re JBN [2020] WTLR 563
Summer 2020 #179The Public Guardian applied to revoke a lasting power of attorney (LPA) for property and affairs appointing DN as attorney for his father, JN. The application was brought on the basis that the Public Guardian was concerned that DN had not acted in JN’s best interests by selling JN’s residence and transferring most of the proceeds to himself (DN), and by mixing their finances by operating a joint account.
The Public Guardian was particularly concerned that JN’s care costs were in jeopardy and therefore invited the court, when considering the application on paper, to suspend DN’s at...
Bagguley v E [2020] WTLR 1
Spring 2020 #178The claimant was the Property and Affairs Deputy for the defendant (E). The claimant applied for authority for buccal cell samples to be taken from E for the purposes of DNA testing to establish whether E was the father of three adults (D, P, and A).
E was expected to die within the year though his health was not currently critical ([28]). The procedure for collecting the sample was probably no more intrusive than assisting E to clean his teeth.
Earlier DNA tests were undertaken on E’s instructions in 1991. They indicated a 99.9% probability of paternity, provided no close ...