Michael Tringham reports on a “wrecked” estate—and polygamous intestacy
Recent decisions indicate judicial alarm at the cost of contentious probate cases.
In Perrins v Holland—where the Appeal Court upheld the will of a testator who had full capacity when he gave instructions but had lost that capacity by the time he executed the will—the chancellor of the High Court quoted earlier observations that “the evidential fog cannot but recall the opening of Bleak House; just as the exhaustion of the estate in legal costs cannot but recall its ending” and that “although there is a public interest that where reasonable suspicions about the validity of a will are raised, it should be proved in solemn form, that public interest cannot justify the potential exhaustion of the estate in legal costs…there is also a public interest in encouraging sensible settlements.”
After referring to Mr Justice Lewinson’s 2009 analysis—that the real trigger for litigation was the fact that the testator had left his only valuable asset to his carer, of whom the family disapproved—the chancellor refused the testator’s son leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. He
