Wills can and often are challenged by dependents who think they should have received more from an estate than they get and in this case bought before a court, a daughter thought she should have a larger share of her aristocrat father’s £1.3 million estate.
Giving away assets to your loved ones with warm hands, when you are still fit and healthy, is a readily available means of reducing Inheritance Tax (IHT) liabilities.
Heir hunters are a valuable resource to find beneficiaries of an estate if the person has died without leaving a Will. It should be remembered that these companies are not regulated…
Estate planning is essential when there is a family business to prevent tax problems in the untimely death of a shareholder as this following High Court case demonstrates.
The trouble with promises that are not recorded in writing by a professional is that it can be very hard to prove after the event that they were ever made.
A penniless Eastern European man who had made his fortune in his lifetime decided to make his own Will which meant that his £2.75 million estate may not have reached the beneficiaries he wanted them to on his death. The following case details the problems of making a Will without the proper legal advice.
When you live in a property with a partner and contribute to its maintenance by undertaking work or paying for work to it you could believe that you have a financial interest in that property. Without a formal arrangement you could find that you have no security.
The following case highlights how important it is to seek the advice of a lawyer when setting up a trust fund as investors discovered when they sought to claim $18 million awarded to an inventor’s idea, which the court rejected.
If you have recently lost a loved one, you may need some guidance on matters of Wills and Probate. A Grant of Probate is the legal right to control a deceased person’s property.
Drafting wills may appear easy and many people are tempted to save a few pounds by dispensing with legal advice. However, as one High Court case clearly showed, the words used can have particular legal effects that could not be foreseen by a layman and a thorough knowledge of the law is therefore essential.