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If you have not been reasonably provided for in a loved one's will, the law may come to your aid. However, as a High Court ruling made plain, your ability to seek legal redress cannot itself be inherited and will expire on your death. Following the deaths of his adoptive parents, a son launched proceedings under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 asserting that they had not made reasonable provision for him in their wills. The son sadly died before his case could come to court and...

Most investors would agree that the price at which shares are listed on an accredited investment exchange is as reliable a guide as any to their open market value. A tax dispute concerning a gift of shares to charity, however, showed that such an assumption may not always be correct. A man received 190,000 shares in a recently formed company as a gift from a friend before gifting them on to a children's charity. Based on the price attributed to the shares on AIM, he asserted that they were, on...

Fathers who are denied access to their children are frequently heard to complain that judges do not do enough to support them. In coming down hard on a defiant mother who refused to countenance her child having contact with her father, however, a family judge showed that paternal rights are never forgotten. Professionals were involved in the child's life even before her birth. Child in need and child protection plans, together with a supervision order, were put in place. Despite a social worker's recommendation that she should have regular contact...

Law firms focused on ensuring their clients' peace of mind generally provide secure storage facilities for their important documents. A High Court inheritance dispute triggered by a landowner's missing will underlined the risks of keeping such documents at home where they can all too easily be mislaid. Less than five years before his premature death from a brain tumour, the landowner signed a professionally drafted will by which he left the bulk of his estate to a close friend. Something of a hoarder, he chose to keep the original document...