Essential validity of wills: knowledge and approval, undue influence and fraud
How presumptions, suspicious circumstances and evidentiary burdens shape challenges to wills in practice.
Elder law & succession: November 2024
Decisions on severance by divorce, the essential validity of a will, payment of estate debts, and informal wills and costs. By DARRYL BROWNE.
In conversation with wills and estates lawyer Josephine Pignataro
Josephine Pignataro is a member of the Law Society of NSW’s Elder Law and Succession Committee. She will be speaking at the Specialist Conference Conference…
Supreme Court Practice Note and NSWCA clarifies assumptions in wills and estates law
Wills and estates practitioners have new rules and precedent to follow with a new Supreme Court Practice Note and an influential decision in Alexakis.
Elder law & succession: August 2024
Recent decisions involving mutual wills agreement, the validity of witness gifts, executor duties and elder financial abuse. By DARRYL BROWNE.
Keeping it in the family: self-dealing is as dangerous as it sounds
The rules around self-dealing can complicate seemingly simple sales to executors of an estate: solicitors have a crucial role to play at all stages.
Elder law & succession: June 2024
Recent decisions involving informal wills, elder financial abuse and proprietary estoppel. By DARRYL BROWNE.
To act or not to act? That is the question
Recent cases and reform show the importance of deciding whether or not to act for a client, especially for probate solicitors.
Trouble at the bank of mum and dad
Gift or loan? Families can be litigious when they fall out but good practice at the outset can keep it out of court.
Estate and family law planning for the ‘great wealth transfer’
Lawyers are seeing an unprecedented demand from clients for wealth protection plans to ensure their legacy is carried out upon death.
What does it mean to ‘survive’?
Practitioners will be familiar with the words ‘survive me’ in wills, but the word ‘survive’ has two different meanings.