Key Disclosure Secured in Disputed Will Challenge

JMW’s Private Wealth Disputes team successfully obtained a pre-action disclosure order on behalf of a client who was challenging the validity of her late mother’s will. The disclosure provided important evidence to help investigate concerns surrounding the preparation of the will and whether it reflected the deceased’s true wishes.

The Case

Our client instructed JMW to challenge the validity of her mother’s will, which excluded her entirely in favour of her sister and brother-in-law.

The deceased spoke primarily Gujarati and Hindi and had very limited English. However, the will had been prepared by a will writer who could not speak or understand either language. Instead, the deceased’s son-in-law acted as an unofficial translator during the preparation of the will. He did not disclose his relationship to the will writer and did not hold any formal translation qualifications.

According to our client’s sister, the deceased had intentionally excluded our client and her brother because she believed they had already received sufficient financial gifts during her lifetime. Our client disputed this account and was concerned that the will may not have reflected her mother’s true intentions.

How Did JMW Help?

Our client needed a solicitor with experience in investigating potentially invalid wills and gathering evidence before proceedings were issued.

JMW Senior Associate Beth Middleton identified the need to obtain further information regarding the alleged lifetime gifts that had supposedly justified our client's exclusion from the will. To investigate this issue, we sought disclosure of the deceased’s bank statements and the Inheritance Tax forms submitted to HM Revenue & Customs.

This information was important in establishing whether the alleged gifts had actually been made and whether they had been properly declared. Where no evidence existed, it would support our client’s position that the deceased may not have had full knowledge and approval of the contents of the will.

When the defendant refused to provide the disclosure voluntarily, we advised our client to make an application for pre-action disclosure and prepared the necessary evidence and submissions to support that application.

The Outcome

The court granted our client’s application and ordered the defendant to provide disclosure of the deceased’s bank statements and the relevant Inheritance Tax documentation.

This was an important result for our client as it provided access to information that could help establish whether the will accurately reflected the deceased’s wishes and intentions.

Private wealth disputes often depend on access to evidence that is not readily available to all parties. By securing a pre-action disclosure order, we ensured our client could properly investigate her concerns and make informed decisions about the next steps in her claim.

The outcome demonstrated the value of taking early and decisive action when key information is being withheld.