News & Insights

The number of High Court disputes over inheritance hit an all-time high last year.

A recent Court of Appeal ruling that a trustee can’t use privilege to withhold documents requested by a beneficiary will have a limited impact due to a 2018 update to the U.K.’s data protection law.

Mark Lindley, partner at the Firm, discusses how using gender-neutral pronouns in wills and the introduction of Gender Recognition Certificates improve clarity regarding inheritance issues

Clients hope that, by taking appropriate professional advice, they are likely to avoid making a serious error that leaves them worse off than they would have been if they had tried to achieve the same result in a different way, or if they had done nothing at all.

This is often a difficult question to answer, first, for trustees and secondly for the Court.

In Pitt v Holt, Futter v Futter [2013] UKSC 26, the Supreme Court significantly curtailed the hitherto wide application of what had become known as the Rule in Hastings-Bass and also set out authoritively the circumstances in which the Court may grant relief (in terms of rescission) for mistake in relation to a non-contractual voluntary disposition.

A common issue that arises when dealing with trusts is establishing what information and/or documents a beneficiary is entitled to see, once it is established that they have an interest in the trust.

As litigators, we generally regard it our overriding duty to obtain the best possible result for our clients by (within reason) every means available to us.

Q: There is an assumption that where litigation relating to trusts is concerned, there is less personal cost risk to the parties, as they can ultimately look to the trust funds to pay their legal costs. Is that correct?