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NLJ this week: Probate—how creative practitioners can avoid it

31 March 2023
Issue: 8019 / Categories: Legal News , Wills & Probate , Profession
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The process of obtaining probate can be a headache and a cause for despair, but what if there were an alternative? 

Ann Stanyer, partner at Wedlake Bell, writing in this week’s NLJ, suggests it may be ‘time to rethink’ whether a grant of representation is necessary and whether, instead, clients’ affairs could be structured in a way to avoid the probate process.

Stanyer sets out alternatives—for example, most high street banks are prepared to release up to £50,000 or more in some circumstances, without a grant of representation. She also looks at trusts and transfers of estate for high net worth individuals.

Stanyer concludes that while, the need for the grant will continue for complex estates, ‘practitioners need to be more creative in advising clients about how to avoid the need for a grant of representation for a straightforward estate’. 

Read more about the alternative options here.

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360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

Investment banking veteran appointed as chairman to drive global growth

NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
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
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
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
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
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