Wills
I can ensure that your tailor made will achieves all your objectives by providing for your beneficiaries in accordance with your wishes in the most tax efficient manner available.
My work in this area includes: Will drafting, Inheritance Tax matters and estate Planning. I can offer help at any stage, including future planning to protect assets from inclusion in financial assessment.
By their nature, disputes over Wills, Trusts and Probate often occur at times of emotional vulnerability and distress. It is really important to deal with such issues with sensitvity at an early stage to help resolve matters can therefore be crucial and can potentially avoid litigation and costly court proceedings.I act for executors, personal representatives and for individuals claiming against estates or other parties and I often advise on complex and cross-jurisdictional issues.
Wills Disputes
I deals with all forms of disputes relating to Wills, Estates, Trusts and also Court of Protection issues.
In doing so, I act for a wide variety of people including private individuals, executors, administrators, trustees, charities and banks. If a family member has not made a will, their net assets (known as their estate) are divided in accordance with the intestacy rules.
Such issues I deal with include:
Contesting A Will
When people think of contesting a Will then this is often the part of Inheritance Law that they think of first. As large numbers of people don't make a Will, it's increasingly common for people who should have inherited to get nothing at all. The Intestacy Rules can be a harsh process for people who do not benefit.
Alternatively, people may have had a Will written many years ago and failed to change it when their personal circumstances changed, causing hardship to surviving family members.
I can help you bring a claim against the Will under the Inheritance (Provision for Family & Dependants) Act 1975, as this Act allows people that have been left out of a Will to bring a claim.
Who Can Claim When Not Mentioned in a Will?
- A surviving spouse or civil partner
- Former spouses or civil partners
- Cohabitees (if you lived together as man and wife for over two years)
- Children of the person that died
- People treated as children of the family
- People that were dependant on the person that died
The Executor Is Not Doing His/Her Job Correctly
If you are due to get an Inheritance from an Estate then you may become concerned that the people Administering the Will, the Executor/s, are not doing their job properly. Inheritance Law protects beneficiaries in a number of ways from mismanagement of the Estate by the Administrator/s. The Law imposes heavy responsibilities and where those are breached, the Estate Administrators may become personally liable for the losses sustained by the Estate.
Mistake of the Will
There are occasions when a Will has mistakes. This can be through another solicitor or instructions which have not been followed correctly. In these cases you should obtain specialist legal advice to help with resolving the problem with the Will.
Where mistakes have been made in a Will either as a result of a clerical error maybe by a lawyer; or by a failure of the lawyer to understand their client’s instructions; a Court may correct the Will so that it properly represents what was intended. This process is known as Rectification.
This option should always be considered before contesting a Will or bringing a professional negligence claim as it may provide a faster and more economical solution. Our clients' needs are at the core of all the work we do and therefore we would only take action which would resolve the problem in the best possible way.
Other Problems
In addition, I can help with any of the following:
- Problems during the administration of the estate
- Problems over the construction of a will
- Problems with or between personal representatives/executors
- Actions to remove executors
- Defending claims upon the estate
- Requiring personal representatives to account for their actions during the administration of an estate
Whatever your circumstances are I can help you.