It is reported that there has been an increase in inheritance disputes.
There has apparently been a 38% increase in Court orders relating to inheritance cases since 2019.
The law states that people can leave their estate to anyone they want. However, under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) Act 1975, the court can override someone’s will if they failed to make “reasonable financial provision” for dependents. Anyone who was financially supported by the deceased can make a claim, including cohabitating partners and ex-partners who have not remarried. It is often the case that a deceased person’s new partner finds themselves at loggerheads with the step children.
There are many other ways to challenge a will including lack of capacity, undue influence or failure to follow the formalities.
There were two interesting cases regarding wills which caught my attention recently which are authorities for the proposition that you can write your will on the back of a cereal packet and the revoke it by partially ripping it up! Neither option is recommended however because costly legal disputes ensued. Burning or otherwise destroying a will is also a permitted way of revoking it.
Mrs Carry Keats and the ripped up will. Crew & Anor v Oakley & Ors
Mrs Keats thought she was revoking her will when she tore ¾ of it up depriving her relatives of an £800,000 inheritance.
The question for the Court was whether ripping up the majority of the will counted as revoking it. Under the Wills Act 1837 any person can legally revoke a will they have made by tearing it up. The court heard that Mrs Keats had fallen out with other family members ‘after they indicated that they were going to put her in a nursing home if she had another fall’. Her cousins brought a claim in the High Court as it was argued that Mrs Keats wanted to leave her sister nothing. They also argued that she did not have the mental capacity on her deathbed to change her mind about her will.
Mrs Keats died on February 15, 2022, less than three weeks after tearing up her will in hospital. Mrs Keats, owned a successful caravan site, and left behind £800,000.
Eighteen months earlier, she had made a will which split almost everything she owned between five distant cousins of hers, one of whom, David Crew, her cousin once removed, had been close friends with her and her late husband for many years.
The court heard that her sister took her roast dinners every Sunday whilst she was still at home during her last years and visited her in hospital almost every day during her final illness.
During the same period, Mrs Keats, who was described as ‘stubborn’ and ‘old-fashioned’ in court documents, fell out with her Cousins.
In January 2022, Mrs Keats asked her solicitor Mrs Webb to come to Salisbury Hospital and she tore up her will in front of her.
Mrs Keats, had struggled to complete the task, so when Webb asked if she needed help tearing the last part, the client made eye contact with her and nodded. The solicitor said she had ‘no shadow of a doubt’ that Keats had the capacity to give instructions and was adamant that it should be torn up. The result was that Keats’ estate passed by intestacy to her younger sister.
Under the Wills Act 1837, for the destruction of the will to be valid Mrs Keats had to either intentionally fully destroy the will herself or properly authorise her solicitor to do so.
The judge found that Mrs Keats had wanted to destroy her existing will and authorised her solicitor on her deathbed to help complete that task.
The solicitor who had worked with Mrs Keats before, had seen her client tear about three quarters of the most recent document leaving her estate to her cousins.
The judge found that there was a positive communication and not mere acquiescence, as Carry looked at Mrs Webb and responded to her direct offer with a physical command or instruction reflecting her wish that Mrs Webb should actively assist her to complete the tearing in half of the will.
The court found that Mrs Keats had capacity in a narrow window when she decided to tear up the will. She intended to do so and revoked it by destruction in accordance with section 20 of the Wills Act 1837. The judge dismissed the cousins’ claim to her estate.
Mr Chenery and the will on the food packaging box
In this case Mr Chenery wrote his will on the back of some cardboard food packaging. Before his death in 2021 Mr Chenery left his property to The British Diabetic Association.
The first page of the will was handwritten on a Young’s frozen fish fillets box, while the second page was scrawled on a Mr Kipling mince pies box.
The question was whether the will was valid as it was written on different boxes. The second page had been legally witnessed and signed by Mr Chenery’s neighbours, but the first page, which stipulated that the house and contents should go to the charity, could not automatically be read as part of the same document because it did not come from the same Mr Kipling box.
If the will was not valid then the estate would pass to his sisters and nieces. The family did not in fact contest the charity’s application.
The Judge found for the charity and said she agreed that “the document is clearly intended from its context to be a will.”
Clearly there are lessons to be learned from both cases. Litigation about wills can be very expensive and we do recommend mediation. Through mediation the parties can try to reach a reasonable compromise and save a little of money. They is however unlikely to be a clear cut winner in mediation which is all about compromise.
To arrange a mediation please do get in touch.