Estate Planning Research with Casey

A will must meet specific formal requirements to be valid, including proper execution, witness signatures, and testamentary intent. Challenges to validity can arise years after the testator's death, often catching families off guard.

Casey returns decisions where courts analyzed witness requirements, the testator's knowledge and approval of the will's contents, substantial compliance doctrines, and how judges handled wills with technical deficiencies.

Testamentary capacity requires that the testator understood the nature of making a will, the extent of their property, and the claims of those who might expect to benefit. Challenges based on dementia, illness, or cognitive decline are increasingly common.

Casey surfaces rulings applying the Banks v Goodfellow test, examining medical evidence, witness testimony about the testator's lucidity, the role of the drafting solicitor, and how courts distinguished between general incapacity and lucid intervals.

When someone in a position of trust or authority pressures a vulnerable person to change their will, the will or the affected provisions may be set aside. Proving undue influence is difficult because it typically happens in private, and courts rely on circumstantial evidence.

Casey retrieves decisions examining suspicious circumstances, the relationship between the influencer and testator, isolation of the testator from other family members, late changes to the will, and how courts shifted the burden of proof.

A power of attorney grants broad authority over financial or personal care decisions. When the attorney acts in their own interest rather than the grantor's, the consequences can be devastating. Courts regularly address breach of fiduciary duty by attorneys.

Casey returns rulings on breach of fiduciary duty, self-dealing, failure to account, unauthorized gifts, and how courts ordered restitution or removed attorneys who abused their authority.

Estate trustees have a duty to administer the estate fairly and efficiently, but disputes arise over delays, investment decisions, compensation, and the interpretation of will provisions. Beneficiaries who feel the estate is being mismanaged need targeted case law.

Casey surfaces decisions on trustee removal, the standard for demonstrating mismanagement, conflicts of interest between the trustee and beneficiaries, and how courts balanced the cost of removal against the harm of continued administration.

In many jurisdictions, dependants who were not adequately provided for in a will can apply to the court for support from the estate. These claims balance the testator's freedom to distribute their property against the moral obligation to support dependants.

Casey returns cases analyzing the dependant's needs, the size of the estate, the relationship between the dependant and the deceased, the deceased's reasons for the distribution, and how courts balanced competing claims from multiple dependants.