“She did not get in touch with me and I heard from her husband’s parents that she had a baby boy. When I heard about this, I visited her in hospital and took flowers and brought up her perambulator and other presents. However, she made herself very unpleasant and wished to have nothing to do with me. Therefore she receives nothing from me at my death.”
“The applicant has to show that the will fails to make provision for his maintenance: see In re Coventry (deceased) …[1980] Ch 461 . In that case both Oliver J at first instance and Goff LJ in the Court of Appeal disapproved of the decision in In re Christie (deceased) …[1979] Ch 168 , in which the judge had treated maintenance as being equivalent to providing for the well-being or benefit of the applicant. The word ‘maintenance’ is not as wide as that. The court has, up until now, declined to define the exact meaning of the word ‘maintenance’ and I am certainly not going to depart from that approach. But in my judgment the word ‘maintenance’ connotes only payments which, directly or indirectly, enable the applicant in the future to discharge the cost of his daily living at whatever standard of living is appropriate to him. The provision that is to be made is to meet recurring expenses, being expenses of living of an income nature. This does not mean that the provision need be by way of income payments. The provision can be by way of a lump sum, for example, to buy a house in which the applicant can be housed, thereby relieving him pro tanto of income expenditure. Nor am I suggesting that there may not be cases in which payment of existing debts may not be appropriate as a maintenance payment; for example, to pay the debts of an applicant in order to enable a him to continue to carry on a profit-making business or profession may well be for his maintenance.”
“It is not the purpose of the Act to provide legacies or rewards for meritorious conduct. Subject to the court’s powers under the Act and to fiscal demands, an Englishman still remains at liberty at his death to dispose of his own property in whatever way he pleases or, if he chooses to do so, to leave that disposition to be regulated by the laws of intestate succession. In order to enable the court to interfere with and reform those dispositions it must, in my judgment, be shown, not that the deceased acted unreasonably, but that, looked at objectively, his disposition or lack of disposition produces an unreasonable result in that it does not make any or any greater provision for the applicant - and that means, in the case of an applicant other than a spouse for that applicant’s maintenance. It clearly cannot be enough to say that the circumstances are such that if the deceased had made a particular provision for the applicant, that would not have been an unreasonable thing for him to do and therefore it now ought to be done. The court has no carte blanche to reform the deceased’s dispositions or those which statute makes of his estate to accord with what the court itself might have thought would be sensible if it had been in the deceased’s position.”
“It cannot be enough to say ‘here is a son of the deceased; he is in necessitous circumstances; there is property of the deceased which could be made available to assist him but which is not available if the deceased’s dispositions stand; therefore those dispositions do not make reasonable provision for the applicant.’ There must, as it seems to me, be established some sort of moral claim by the applicant to be maintained by the deceased or at the expense of his estate beyond the mere fact of a blood relationship, some reason why it can be said that, in the circumstances, it is unreasonable that no or no greater provision was in fact made.”
“60. In my judgment, what the court has to do is to balance the claims on the estate fairly. There is no doubt that, if the claimant for whom reasonable financial provision needs to be made is elderly or disabled and has extra living costs, consideration would have to be given to meeting those. In my judgment, the same applies to the case where a party has extra financial needs because she relies on state benefits, which must be preserved. Ms Reed submits that the provision of housing would not do this. I disagree. The provision of housing would enable her both to receive a capitalised sum and to keep her tax credits. If those benefits are not preserved then the result is that achieved by DJ Million’s order in this case: there is little or no financial provision for maintenance at all. 61. The claim of the appellant has to be balanced against that of the Charities but since they do not rely on any competing need they are not prejudiced by what may be a higher award than the court would otherwise need to make. 62. In my judgment, the right course is to make an award of the sum of£143,000 , the cost of acquiring the Property, plus the reasonable expenses of acquiring it. That would remove the need to pay rent though some of that money may be required for meeting the expenses that she will have as owner. As Ms Stevens-Hoare submits, having the Property will enable her to raise capital (by equity release) when she needs further income in the future. 63. In addition, I would add to the award a further sum to provide for a very small additional income to supplement her state benefits without the necessity of an equity release. If my Lords agree, I would provide that she has an option, exercisable by notice in writing to the [executors] within two months of the date of this order (or within such longer period as the appellant and [they] may agree) to receive a capital sum not exceeding of£20,000 out of the estate for this purpose. According to the current Duxbury tables in At a Glance for 2015/6, the sum£20,000 [sic] would if invested give her£331 net income per year for the rest of her life. This is not a large amount because of the factors which weigh against her claim, particularly the fact that she is an adult child living independently, Mrs Jackson’s testamentary wishes and to a small extent the appellant's estrangement from Mrs Jackson. 64. The option may be exercised in part more than once provided that the total sum of£20,000 is not thereby exceeded. I have expressed the provision of a capital sum as an option so that, if the award of a capital sum would result in the loss of benefits, she can if she wishes take a lesser sum, or (as she may prefer to do if she is advised that her benefits will not be prejudiced) she may take the lesser sum and spend it, and then exercise the option for an amount or amounts not exceeding the balance.”
“67. In my judgment all of the above factors has produced an unreasonable result in that no provision at all was made for Mrs Ilott in her mother’s will in circumstances where Mrs Ilott is in some financial need. However, I also accept that Mrs Ilott has not had any expectancy of any provision for herself. Mr and Mrs Ilott have managed their life over many years without any expectancy that Mrs Ilott would receive anything. That does not mean that the result is a reasonable one in the straightened financial circumstances of the family. But it does mean, in my judgment that any provision now must be limited.”
“36. The second fundamental error in my judgment is this. The judge was required to calculate financial provision for the appellant’s maintenance. Yet he did not know what effect the award of£50,000 would have on her state benefits. He made a working assumption at the end of para 74 of his judgment that the effect of a ‘large capital payment’ (which would include an award such as he ultimately made) would disentitle the family to most if not all of their state benefits, Failure to verify this assumption undermined the logic of the award.”
“The protection of the rights of the family as an essential unit in society is a primary concern of most systems of law. Complete freedom of testation, as enjoyed under English law for a brief period of 47 years, is therefore by the standards of contemporary jurisprudence an anomaly.”
“The principle of absolute freedom of testation is acceptable only if the view were taken that it is more important to be able to dispose of property than to meet natural and legal obligations to the family. We do not believe this view to have any degree of support.”
“this would rule out a claim against the estate of a parent who had unreasonably refused to support an adult child during his life time where it would have been morally appropriate to provide such support. Moreover an adult child, who is fully self-supporting at the time of the parent’s death, may quite suddenly thereafter cease to be so.”