Analysis
The claimant and defendant, who were divorced, had disposed of their claims for financial provision in their divorce proceedings by a consent order which included the provision that, in the event that the defendant received any property and/or monies from her mother by way of inter vivos gifts and/or inheritance, the defendant would retain the first £100,000 of the sum of any such gifts and/or inheritance and the balance would be divided equally between the defendant and the claimant.
The defendant’s mother died. The deceased’s estate was valued at approximately £250,000, giving the claimant a claim of approximately £75,000 if the entire estate passed to the defendant (who was the deceased’s only child). The defendant, as executrix, obtained a grant of a will of the deceased which left only £100,000 to the defendant, with the remainder of the estate left to others.
The claimant sought a pronouncement against the will and revocation of the said grant, challenging the validity of the will on the ground that it was not validly executed in accordance with s9 of the Wills Act 1837.
A preliminary issue arose as to whether the claimant had an interest in the estate of the deceased sufficient to give him legal standing to bring a contentious probate.
Held (answering the preliminary issue in the negative):
- 1) There is a requirement for a claimant to have an interest in the estate for the purposes of challenging the validity of a will. This requirement is a mandatory, substantive common law requirement rather than a procedural requirement and cannot be abolished or watered down even where there is evidence of credible forgery.
- 2) The fact that a will becomes a public document upon being admitted to probate and the approach to judicial review proceedings are of no assistance in deciding the issue of standing to bring a probate claim. Simply being a member of the public is not sufficient to show an interest in the estate.
- 3) Whether a person had an interest in the estate is to be determined by reference to the touchstones of (a) whether they are personal representatives, (b) the grant of representation, and (c) the entitlement to a distribution of the estate. The court is concerned with identifying an interest in the estate and not whether someone is interested in the estate. Just as a creditor of an estate, while interested in the estate, has no interest in the estate, so a creditor of a beneficiary of the estate has no interest in the estate though he is possibly interested in the estate.
- 4) In the present case, the nature of the claimant’s interest under the consent order was as a creditor, or prior to distribution, possibly as a contingent creditor, of the defendant in her personal capacity. There cannot have been an equitable assignment in respect of any requisite inheritance for, until the defendant received the distribution, there was no obligation on her. If the defendant received a distribution she would be absolutely entitled to the asset representing the gift or inheritance and there would then arise an obligation in debt between the defendant (in a personal capacity) and the claimant, under the consent order (that the defendant pay a sum of money). That the claimant had no proprietary interest in the inheritance while it was part of the estate was clearly indicated by the fact that the quantum of the sum the claimant would be entitled to be paid from any inheritance in the event of a distribution to the defendant would be fixed at the date of death (or the date of distribution), with the claimant not suffering nor benefitting from any loss or gain in the value of the asset distributed to the defendant.
- 5) Accordingly, the claimant did not have an interest in the estate sufficient to give him legal standing to bring a contentious probate claim therein.
Continue reading "Randall v Randall [2014] EWHC 3134 (Ch)"