A digest of some interesting cases over the last 6 months:-
WILLS – Crew v. Oakley & Ors [2024] EWHC 2847 (Ch)
In a case of revocation by destruction, the Court prefers evidence as to capacity from ‘a conscientious professional solicitor’ who knew the testatrix well and kept detailed contemporaneous notes.
WILLS – Bonham v. Stringer & Ors [2025] EWHC 28 (Ch)
On the true construction of the Will the Trust Fund should be divided into three equal shares, and it is not necessary to rectify the Will so as to replace the word ‘four’ with the word ‘three’.
WILLS – Packer v. Packer [2025] EWHC 461 (Ch)
The presumption of revocation applies where a testator gave instructions to his sister to draft his Will, in the absence of his wife, but subsequently was told that the Will was invalid, and which could not be located after his death.
PROBATE – Osborne & Anor v. Osborne [2025] EWHC 455 (Ch)
A residuary beneficiary is removed as executor where the Court had ‘not found that he was guilty of any wrongdoing and, in particular, that he has consciously preferred his own interests to the interests of the estate… [but] that the Letter of Wishes and the Defendant’s reliance on it gave rise to a conflict’.
TRUSTS – Rukhadze v. Recovery Partners [2025] UKSC 10
When considering profits made by a trustee/fiduciary, the question is: ‘did the profit owe its existence to a significant extent to the application by the fiduciary of property, information or some other advantage which he enjoyed as a result of his fiduciary position, or from some activity undertaken while he remained a fiduciary which the conflict duty required him to avoid altogether’.
TRUSTS – Earl of Yarmouth v. Ragley Trust Co & Ors [2025] EWHC 1099 (Ch)
Trustees are entitled to defend an application to remove them, and such an application is capable of being dismissed ‘in the face of hostility, at least coming from a beneficiary, where the trustees are suitable and willing to administer the trusts in the interests of all the beneficiaries.