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Fiona Smith finds much to praise in the 2013 edition of a distinguished classic Williams, Mortimer & Sunnucks ‘Executors, Administrators and Probate’ John Ross Martyn and Nicholas Caddick QC 20th ed, Sweet & Maxwell ISBN: 9780414024342 £275.00 Williams, Mortimer and Sunnocks’ ‘Executors, Administrators and Probate’ is a staple of most private client practitioners’ libraries and …
Continue reading "Book Review: Useful and informative"
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Kerry Rogers assesses the current attitude towards legacies and discusses how legal professionals should handle charitable giving ‘Legal professionals should ensure, that when a client draws up a will that makes little or no provision for their children, or other potential claimants, the client is made aware of the risk of a claim against the …
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Geoffrey Shindler advocates positive action in the light of the Lord Chancellor’s rejection of the Legal Services Board’s recommendations on will writing ‘Unless a significant amount of powerful new evidence is produced, no further regulation will be considered for will writers.’To universal cries of disappointment, but not entirely unsurprisingly, the recommendations made to the Lord …
Continue reading "Musings From Manchester: Speaking with one voice"
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Duncan Bailey reviews a case that discusses to what extent a law firm is responsible for unforeseen personal tax consequences stemming from a corporate transaction when private client advice is not part of the remit ‘The introduction of a reasonably competent private client tax team would have led to them advising Mr Swain and his …
Continue reading "Duty Of Care: What is included in your retainer?"
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Manx case IFG International v French clarifies the extent to which trust protectors can be indemnified out of trust assets. Seth Caine explains ‘Counsel for the trustees had argued that any indemnity to which Mr French was entitled as a former protector was limited, and related only to any costs and liabilities incurred by Mr …
Continue reading "Trust Protectors: Obligation to indemnify?"
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Sharma v Hunters indicates the concerns the court takes into account when dealing with a wasted costs order, as Kate Mundy and Russell Simpson report This case relates to the estate of Mr Hari Ram Sharma (Mr Sharma) who died on 12 December 2010. Mr Sharma had been a patient of the Court of Protection …
Continue reading "Wasted Costs: Flag it up"
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Geoffrey Shindler questions the rationale of regulating will writing but not estate administration ‘Professional competence, among the will writing profession and those who are not professionals but who practise will writing, is to be regulated; those who carry out estate administration are not to be regulated. Why are the latter “excused boots”, as they used …
Continue reading "Musings From Manchester: Who regulates?"
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Hannah Herbert weighs up the pros and cons of the new statutory residence test ‘The aim of the legislation was to reflect the law as established in existing statute, case law and HMRC guidance… Now that the SRT is in place, most commentators agree that it is an improvement on the old system.’ When considering …
Continue reading "Statutory Residence Test: Objective, clear, certain?"
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Andrew Francis discusses Gudavadze v Kay, which sheds light on a rarely used jurisdiction of the court to pass over those who would normally be entitled to a grant of representation ‘Gudavadze v Kay makes it clear that s116 is a very useful tool in the probate practitioner’s work box where the absence of a …
Continue reading "Probate: A blast from the past"
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Dominic Ribet reports on whether the amendments to IHT legislation contained in the recent Budget will lead to any unintended consequences ‘The resulting economic impact of changes to the IHT legislative framework could be far greater than the HMRC has anticipated.’ The 2013 spring Budget saw George Osborne take aim at hitherto uncontroversial arrangements that …
Continue reading "Budget 2013: Deal with liabilities before death"
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