Loring v Woodland Trust [2013] EWHC 4400 (Ch)
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | May 2014 #139The testatrix, T, died on 1 September 2011 leaving an estate with a net value of £680,805. Her will, dated 2 February 2001, included provision for a nil rate band legacy for her children and grandchildren under clause 5 which stated:
‘MY TRUSTEES shall set aside out of my residuary estate assets or cash of an aggregate value equal to such sum as is at the date of my death the amount of my unused nil rate band for inheritance tax and to hold the same for such of the following as shall survive me.’
The residue was left to the first defendant, the Woodland Trust ...
Kevern v Ayres & anr [2014] EWHC 165 (Ch)
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | April 2014 #138Raymond Ayres deceased died intestate on 4 June 2008. The claimant is the deceased’s sister and the first defendant his wife.
As the deceased left no issue, his estate devolved according to the intestacy rules. Accordingly, his chattels and a statutory legacy of £200,000 went to the first defendant absolutely and the remainder of his estate was divided equally between the claimant and first defendant.
In these circumstances, the first defendant intimated a claim for reasonable financial provision from the deceased’s estate. Given the potential for post-death i...
Marley v Rawlings & anr [2014] WTLR 299
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | March 2014 #137Mr Alfred Rawlings and his wife Maureen Rawlings instructed a solicitor to draft their wills in mirror form. Each spouse intended to leave his or her entire estate to the survivor of them, but provided that, should the other have predeceased or survived them for less than a month, their estates should be left to the appellant, who was not related to them but whom they treated as their son. Mr and Mrs Rawlings’ solicitor attended them on 17 May 1999 to enable a due execution of draft wills containing these provisions. By an oversight, their solicitor gave each spouse the other’s draft wil...
Gregg & anr v Pigott & ors [2012] EWHC 732 (Ch)
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | July/August 2012 #121The court was asked to construe the phrase ‘statutory next of kin’ in a settlement that was executed in 1948. It was common ground that, under the classic rules of construction, that phrase would have excluded adopted children because the intestacy rules in 1948 did not benefit adopted children. However, the adopted children argued that they were entitled to capital and income under the trust in preference to their distant cousins who would have benefited under the intestacy rules as enacted in 1948. The adopted children argued that to prevent them benefiting would be a breac...
Public Trustee v Butler & anr [2012] EWHC 858 (Ch)
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | July/August 2012 #121The public trustee brought a Part 8 claim concerning the construction of the will dated 22 June 1967 of Saral Kumar Bose (testator). The testator had been born in India on 3 May 1893 and had subsequently moved to England where he had worked as an electrical engineer for London Underground. He was married to Florence Katie Bose (widow) and had died childless on 13 September 1972. The widow had died on 23 May 1998. At the time of his death, the net value of the testator’s estate was £137,307 and on 17 September 2012 it comprised investments of £581,150 with unapplied income of £265,6...