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When parents changed their wills to exclude their son from inheriting their £1 million farm after a family falling-out in 2016, he took the unusual step of challenging their right to do so. Normally, such challenges are made against the estates of deceased parents. The son took the step after having, he claimed, done 'arduous' work on the family farm for more than 20 years on the basis of a promise by his 78-year-old parents that he would one day inherit it. That such a promise had been made was not...

Home-made contracts, particularly for the sale of land, are a singularly bad idea and can lead to costs that dwarf the modest sums needed to secure proper professional advice. Exactly that happened in one case in which a house purchase contract was so inexpertly drafted as to cast grave doubt on its validity. The owner of the property negotiated with his neighbours with a view to selling it to a company owned by one of them. A contract was drafted by one of the neighbours, who was not a lawyer,...

When the mother of a teenage daughter who had been taken into care in 2016 with her agreement had another child, the local council's social services department became involved. The woman's daughter had been removed from home as a result of her mother's relationship with the baby's father. As is often the case in such situations, the family relationship was dysfunctional, having been described as being 'characterised by alcohol consumed by both parties, but more important and additionally, alcohol which fuelled regular domestic violence within the household'. Following the birth...

Recently, Santander was fined more than £30 million for failing to distribute more than £180 million held in deceased customers' accounts to their personal representatives or entitled beneficiaries. More than 40,000 account holders were involved in a problem that persisted for years, leading to an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). One of the chief issues that the bank faced was that its procedures were unable to identify when a deceased account holder held several accounts. This meant that assets were not identified and dealt with, delaying the administration...