Caveat

troubleinparadise

madbadrob wrote: »

Is he trying to say that when the will was written that his father was not of sound mind etc? If so who wrote the will for him? Has his solicitor asked for a Larke V Nugus report yet?

Rob

Post 12 in this thread:

freda11: Thanks rpc, this caveat was placed in June and since then our solicitor who did the will has answered questions based on Larke v Nugus. Like you say all we can do now is wait for the reply.

freda11

we were not sure at first what reason he was giving, it was only when he put in the appearance a week ago that we heard this is his reason. we didn't find out about the caveat until probate was ready to be granted, which is the norm apparently.

madbadrob

Freda11,

With what you have said I would hope the son's solicitor is advising him that there is nothing more he can do

Rob

freda11

I hope so Rob, thanks. Am I right in thinking our solicitor when writing to the probate office can ask for the caveat to be removed and then get probate granted?

madbadrob

Only if there is an agreement from both parties

Rob

freda11

Well he definitely will not agree to remove it. I thought if there was no grounds for it to be there then it could be deemed as vexatious and be removed. If that's not the case then court he we come!

troubleinparadise

Dear Freda11,

I am posting a link here to a report on the outcome of a case where a son who had been disinherited claimed that his mother was not well when she created her will - which he lost.

I appreciate this is not identical to your case, but rather more to give you some hope that should things progress this far that the outcome might be similar.

I guess the negative aspect is that in the reported case the complaining son may have had legal advice that his case was flimsy... but he pursued it nonetheless. Perhaps that had something to do with it being an estate worth a reported £450k!

http://www.step.org/court-rejects-malign-allegations-against-mothers-favoured-son

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10146054/Elderly-mothers-trip-to-Wimbledon-womens-final-at-heart-of-sons-inheritance-dispute.html

freda11

Wow very similar, thanks for that!

harryhound

It would appear that Daphne Jeffery was a shrewd judge of character when she decided to jump a generation for half of her estate?

rpc

freda11 wrote: »

Hi yes the will solicitor has filled in a lark v nugus report and confirmed he was of sound mind it was witnessed and carried out correctly. Step dad also addressed a letter to blood son explaining why he was not leaving him anything. I don't know whether he has received that or not yet. I will check with the solicitor on Monday.

So he was meant to be high on morphine and incapable of rational thought, yet still managed to write a letter explaining his rationale...

Ultimately, I don't see any way of son succeeding. It is possible he has been told this, but by being a right royal PITA he might get an offer to settle and go away.

It's up to you to decide whether to play hard and go to court - you may end up having to pay a lot of legal fees but then you might be able to claim these back.

Alternatively, you could try an offer ("without prejudice save as to costs") to see if he will go away.

Roughly how big is the estate? If it is only (say) £5k then it could all go to solicitors. If it is £500k then you can afford to spend some on lawyers to get it sorted properly.

Take the advice of your solicitor, but I would expect them to write him a letter explaining why his case will fail and that you will seek to have your costs awarded against him. The prospect of a few £k inheritance for being awkward is nice. The prospect of a costs order of £XXk for being awkward is scary.