Category Archives: Succession
Cressida Auckland, ‘Reforming Testamentary Capacity: The Problem of Disorder’
ABSTRACT After many delays, the Law Commission is due to publish its final report on the law governing wills in early 2025. In it, it is expected that it will propose amendments to the test for testamentary capacity, in order to bring it in line with the test for capacity under the Mental Capacity Act […]
Recently Published: Falconer, Barker and Fell (eds), Life and Death in Private Law
Private law regulates life; this is self-evident, but how does it regulate death? This edited collection explores this question. Life and death are the beginning and end of the legal person: the instigator and terminator of rights, interests and obligations. They are also the nominal separator of particular fields of law (medical law from succession […]
‘Marcus v Marcus: can a non-biological child be “a child of the settlor”?’
In the recent judgment of Marcus v Marcus [2024] EWHC 2086, Master Marsh found that the words ‘the children and remoter issue of the Settlor’ in a settlement meant the two adult sons of the settlor, even though (unbeknownst to the settlor during his lifetime) one of his sons was not biologically his child. The […]
‘The Doctrine of Public Policy and Discrimination in the Private Law: A Small Light in an Era of Darkness’, Jane Thompson, Zoom, 17 January 2025
The next session of the Tort Law and Social Equality Project Speakers Series takes place on Friday, January 17 at 12:00-1:30 pm EST over Zoom. Jane Thomson of the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law will speak on the invalidation of discriminatory wills and trusts as contrary to public policy. She will speak for […]
‘How to Recover Bitcoin for an Estate’
When someone passes away owning Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, the recovery process can be difficult or impossible. As a personal representative or executor of an estate, the first job is to locate, custody and protect the assets of the deceased. Recovery of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is an essential part of being a personal representative. […]
‘Charities as Heirs’
Adam J Hirsch, ‘Beyond Privity of Blood: Intestacy and Charity’, 76 UC Law Journal (forthcoming, 2025), available at SSRN (March 16, 2024). Adam Hirsch’s new article, ‘Beyond Privity of Blood: Intestacy and Clarity’, argues that intestacy statutes should sometimes give a share of the decedent’s property to charity. To be honest, when I read his […]
Mark Johnson, ‘Modernisation of will-making formalities requires a fulsome embrace of technology’
ABSTRACT Reform to enable electronic wills in England and Wales is on the horizon as the Law Commission reviews responses to its supplementary consultation with a view to reporting in early 2025. This article considers will-making in England and Wales and the potential impact of Wills Act 1837 formalities as a drag on the propensity […]
‘A Proposal to Save Property for Heirs of Decedents of Modest Wealth’
Danaya C Wright, ‘Trapped Between the URPTODA and the UPHPA: Probate Reforms to Bridge the Gap and Save Heirs Property for Modest-Wealth Decedents’, 127 Penn State Law Review 749 (2023). Although my law practice prior to entering academia focused on representing the uber wealthy, my recent interests focus more on preserving wealth in families of […]
‘“Pryket, Pryket, Pryket”: The Persistence of Orality in Fifteenth-Century English Legal Culture’
Unlike many other places in Europe, notaries public did not take hold and proliferate in England after the twelfth-century Legal Revolution. While judge-led law in the newly instituted inquisitorial system of justice implemented by the church and some Continental states necessitated a vast army of notaries to take down depositions and record court proceedings, in […]
Paolo Panico, ‘From Edinburgh to Rome via The Hague: The International Appeal of the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act 2024’
ABSTRACT The Scottish legal system is independent of the English one. Two relevant differences are that the system of property rights in Scotland is based on Roman law, and equity is not a separate source of Scots law. Nonetheless, trusts have been known in Scotland since at least the 16th century. The Trusts and Succession […]