header-logo header-logo

The friendly approach

22 May 2015
Issue: 7653 / Categories: Features , Wills & Probate
printer mail-detail
nlj_7653_myers

Blood is not necessarily thicker than water where will validity is concerned, observes Emma Myers

Pensioner, Ronald Butcher, left more than a monetary legacy when he died. The challenge to his decision to change his will late in the day cutting out family members in favour of someone who’d done him a good turn has highlighted important issues around validating wills and the court’s attitude relatives’ claims.

Seventy-five-year-old Mr Butcher, a bachelor from Enfield in north London, changed his will to disinherit his cousin and two family friends, instead leaving his entire £500,000 estate to a builder who had reportedly cleaned his gutter for free.

The earlier beneficiaries claimed that Mr Butcher did not know and approve of the will’s contents. However, their inability to provide evidence to support this led the court to uphold the will in favour of builder Daniel Bryan Sharp.

Mr Butcher and Mr Sharp met in 2009 and remained friends after the original gutter-clearing job. Mr Sharp of Welling, Kent, would look in on the pensioner whenever he was in the

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
back-to-top-scroll