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Family judges are often called upon to make agonising decisions concerning medical treatment of those who have lost the ability to express their own choices. However, as one case showed, they bend every sinew to discern what their wishes might be and to ensure that they are fully respected. The case concerned a woman in her late 70s of deeply held Christian faith who was a fireball of energy and dedicated her life to working for the NHS. She suffered from a raft of medical issues and, after being admitted...

It is commonplace for parents to put their hands in their pockets to help their children set up in business. As a High Court ruling in a bitterly contested inheritance case showed, however, a failure to formally document the precise legal basis on which such contributions are made is to store up trouble for the future. By his final will, a businessman left his estate to provide an income for his third wife. On her death, his estate was to be divided between four of his children. Nothing was bequeathed...

No one should be surprised to hear that, when a same-sex couple have a child following lawful IVF treatment, each of them has a right to be registered as the child's legal parent. However, as a High Court case showed, whilst the law has generally kept pace with social change, the same cannot always be said of bureaucracy.   The case concerned an eight-year-old boy who was born to a long-established same-sex couple. His gestational parent was, without difficulty, registered as his mother. However, her partner asserted that she was informed...

When interpreting wills, judges focus on the actual words used and that is one good reason why professional drafting really matters. As a guideline case showed, only in the event that the wording of a will is meaningless or ambiguous will extraneous evidence concerning the deceased's intentions become relevant. By her will, a woman bequeathed her home, her shares in a company and all of her personal possessions to a friend. In a further clause, she also left him what was described as a 'nil-rate sum'. That was defined as...