Trust, Wills and Probate

Making a valid will requires an exercise of independent decision-making, free from the undue influence of others. The High Court powerfully made that point in finding that a daughter coerced...

Included in most people’s wills is a clause that has the effect of revoking all their previous wills. Such straightforward provisions are usually uncontentious but, as a guideline Court of...

When making your will, the general rule is that you are free to leave your assets to whomsoever you wish. However, as a High Court case concerning ownership of a...

When making your will, you may, for one reason or another, choose to distribute your estate unevenly between your loved ones. However, as a High Court ruling showed, you are...

Making reasonable provision in your will for those who depend upon you financially is a duty, not a choice. A judge made that point in coming to the aid of...

It is legally possible for couples to make mutual wills by which each binds the other not to alter their bequests at any point in the future, save by mutual...

Tensions simmer within many families and, when making your will, you may wish to keep its contents secret from your loved ones so as to avoid feeding the fire. As...

Failing to make reasonable provision for your dependants in your will is to positively invite discord between your loved ones after you are gone. That was certainly so in the...

When a will is made late in life which materially changes how an estate is to be distributed (especially when the new will favours one of a number of children),...

A divorced man who remarried in his late 50s made a new will in 1998, one year after the marriage, which left his entire estate to his new wife. ...