Wills and Probate | Certainty UK Will Register Blog

Published: 3rd June 2009 Source: Harriet Mayer, www.guardian.co.uk

Power of attorney is being simplified and the cost is falling, so there’s no excuse to put it off any longer, says Harriet Meyer

Given that many of us will develop health problems as we get older, and may even be struck down in the prime of life by accident or illness, arranging for someone to have legal control over our finances and health decisions can be invaluable. This is known as lasting power of attorney (LPA).

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Published: 2nd June 2009 Source: Harriet Mayer, www.guardian.co.uk

A third of us die without a will. Apart from being a problem for your family, the only winner will be the state.

Dying intestate – without writing a will – risks leaving your estate in the wrong hands and a larger slice with the taxman than necessary.

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Published: 23rd February 2009 Source: Daily Mail

He was the wealthy banker who boasted a 2,000-acre Hampshire estate, while she was the attractive divorcee whose head for figures made her his perfect finance director. So when twice-married Robin Kelton head-hunted Marilyn Nash to help him run his new City venture, it was perhaps unsurprising they fell in love. Within a year of meeting, he was divorced and the pair began a decade of unwedded bliss sharing his country estate as well as homes in Belgravia, Barbados and South Carolina, where they planned to retire.

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Published: 14 February 2009 Source: Edinburgh Evening News

‘Ensure your family are cared for when you are gone’, says Lianne Lodge a solicitor at Pagan Osborne. Reading the story this week about the mother-of-five who sadly passed away from an aneurysm two days after giving birth not only brought a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye, but it also demonstrated why having a will in place is important. There are common misconceptions surrounding the topic of wills, as many people think they don’t need one and their family will automatically know what to do in the event of their death. However, leaving a will is an extremely considerate thing to do, making a difficult time slightly easier for those left behind.

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The deadline for paying self assessment tax bills passed at midnight last night. Now experts predict the taxman’s attention may fall on the property market. Conservatives say the Government has a £100 billion ‘black hole’ in its tax account and will try to balance the books by squeezing extra revenue out of areas such as inheritance tax.

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I watched the recent ITV programme about unqualified and unregulated will writers (not a solicitor) with interest. It was most concerning, it seemed to be a very underhand practice that some of them employ. I’m glad to see that ITV has made a clear distinction between someone who would enter your home as a will writing professional who may actually try to maximise their financial gain rather than protect your interests for a fair and reasonable fee.

You may think writing a will is the best way to stop any family arguments on your death, but that may not be the case. According to one leading law firm disputes over wills and trusts have trebled over the past few years. Fay Copeland, head of contentious trusts and probate at Wedlake Bell said: “In previous years we have only been asked questions about the validity of wills. Now people are willing to pursue their claim through the courts. The two main reasons for this are that people are leaving more wealth, so it becomes financially worthwhile to contest a will.
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More than two years after he died, aged 88, the will of the chocolate heir has still not been published and Mandrake hears that all is not well between his widow, Janie, and her stepchildren. Cadbury, who was known as “The Cad”, had five children and one of them tells me: “Wills are always complicated, especially when there are three families involved. Janie is in Nassau and it’s a very different world out there.” (more…)

I feel a lot of sympathy for Christine Gill in her courtroom battle for the estate of her deceased parents, which began last week. After caring for her mother and father for many years, she could reasonably have expected better than to find they had left their estimated £2.3m estate to the RSPCA, which incidentally is just about the UK’s wealthiest charity. Understandably Christine feels aggrieved and is trying to get the will overturned. But as with any challenge to a legal will, she faces a huge battle, not least because the RSPCA will be lawyered up to the eyeballs.

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A LEEDS man and his cousins have begun a legal appeal for their share of a relative’s £10m fortune.
Mervyn Lebor, of Stainburn Avenue, Moor Allerton, wants the will of his aunt, Golda Bechal, in which she left her entire estate to Chinese takeaway owners, to be declared invalid. Yesterday, London’s Court of Appeal heard that an earlier ruling that the widow knew what she was doing was “plainly wrong”.In November last year, Judge Sir Donald Rattee paved the way for Kim Sing Man and his wife Bee Lian Man, from Essex, to inherit the fortune of 88-year-old Mrs Bechal, with whom they had been friends since the 1960s.

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