header-logo header-logo

Home Login E-newsletter About us

Wills and probate

© Copyright LexisNexis 2025. All Rights Reserved.
14 February 2008 / Paola Fudakowska , Adam Cloherty , Paula Hewitt
Issue: 7308 / Categories: Legal News , Public , Legal services , Wills & Probate
printer mail-detail

Kostic v Chaplin & Others [2007] EWHC 2209 (Ch), [2007] All ER (D) 119 (Dec)

The deceased, B, made wills in 1971 and 1974 and a codicil in 1984 leaving his estate to his only son, Z. Those wills were apparently revoked by subsequent wills created in 1988 and 1989 in which B left his entire estate, worth £8.2m, to the Conservative Party Association (CPA). It was common ground that B had, from about the mid-1980s, suffered from a delusional disorder, believing that “dark forces” were conducting a “sinister and highly organised international conspiracy” against him in which various family members, including Z, were implicated. Part of B’s delusions involved him believing that only the Conservative Party, through the agency of Margaret Thatcher, could save the country from such dark forces.

After B’s death in October 2005, Z brought a claim alleging that the 1988 and 1989 wills were invalid because B lacked the testamentary capacity to execute them.
The claim succeeded. Applying Banks v Goodfellow (1871) LR 11 Eq 472, once an insane delusion was made out, the 1988 and 1989 wills should “be regarded with great distrust”. The presumption against the wills was “all the stronger” because they were “inofficious”; by leaving all his fortune to the CPA, B had plainly disregarded the claims of his close family members, for whom he would normally be expected to have affection. Mr Justice Henderson was left “in no real doubt” that the decision to disinherit Z “was heavily influenced by his delusions”, especially in the light of Z’s implication in the apparent conspiracy. Accordingly B lacked testamentary capacity when he made the 1988 and 1989 wills and probate was granted of the 1974 will.
Since he found that B’s decision was influenced by the delusions, the judge found it unnecessary to consider what he called the “fine distinction” between whether, for the will to be valid, it only had to be shown that the delusions did not in fact influence the dispositions in the will, or whether it also had to be shown that the delusions were not likely to influence those dispositions. That joy will have to await another occasion.
 
Costs
In relation to costs, the judge held that in contentious probate actions, the long-established exceptions to the usual costs rule had survived the introduction of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), namely: (i) that if a person who made the will, or persons who were interested in the residue had really been the cause of the litigation, or responsible for the litigation, a case was made out for costs to come out of the estate; and (ii) that if the testator and persons interested in the residue were blameless but where circumstances led reasonably to an investigation of the matter, then the costs might be left to be borne by those who had incurred them. Henderson J also identified a trend of more recent authorities to narrow rather than extend the circumstances in which the first exception is held to apply.
Issue: 7308 / Categories: Legal News , Public , Legal services , Wills & Probate
printer mail-details

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Read All
Sponsored by
CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

NEWS
Read All
NLJ this week: Motor finance faces £11bn reckoning
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
NLJ this week: Gold on Awaab’s Law & digital divorce
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
NLJ this week: AI in the dock—courts need literacy, not fear
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
NLJ this week: Landlords lose their upward climb
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
NLJ this week: Privy Council undresses the ‘shareholder rule’
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis
back-to-top-scroll