Probate in UK Law

There is a further practical reason why one should construe, “interest” to include a potential Inheritance Act claim. If this action could not proceed but the Claimant's claim under the Act went ahead, then the judge, when considering all the circumstances, might well feel considerable unease about proceeding on a possibly false assumption about the validity of the will.

What is involved is simply the satisfaction of the test of knowledge and approval, but the court insists that, given that suspicion, it must be the more clearly shown that the deceased knew and approved the contents of the will so that the suspicion is dispelled. But in a case where the circumstances are such as to arouse the suspicion of the court the propounder must prove affirmatively that knowledge and approval so as to satisfy the court that the will represents the wishes of the deceased.

However, it is instructive to consider the recent decision of Lloyd J. in Hart v Dabbs, unreported, 6 July 2000, as illustrating the properly objective approach of the court in a case where the suspicion of the court has been aroused. In that case the propounder of the will made by a wealthy 74 year old man was a person who was alleged to have killed the deceased unlawfully.

This court dismissed an appeal to it, the Earl of Selborne L.C. observing (9 PD at p. 161), "I do not know how many wills, really well executed and duly attested, might not be brought into peril if, upon the sort of evidence which we have here, after a lapse of several years, probate were refused."

There is no doubt that a creditor of an estate does not have sufficient interest in an estate to bring a probate claim and that Menzies is still good law. The interest of the creditor of a beneficiary is to ensure that the beneficiary receives what is due to him or her under the will or on an intestacy. The interest of a creditor of an estate is to ensure that there is due administration of the estate. The creditor of the estate is not interested in which beneficiary receives what.

It is not the law that in no circumstances can a solicitor or other person who has prepared a will for a testator take a benefit under it. But that fact creates a suspicion that must be removed by the person propounding the will. The degree of suspicion will vary with the circumstances of the case. It may, on the other hand, be so grave that it can hardly be removed. In the present case the circumstances were such as to impose on the Respondent as heavy a burden as can well be imagined.

The first question is: who is entitled to apply under these sections? So far as section 50 is concerned, the answer so far as this case is concerned, is: a person who “under the will of the deceased” is beneficially interested in the estate. The natural meaning of the quoted phrase is a person named in (or one of a class identified in) the will which has been admitted to probate. That, after all, will be the will in relation to which the impugned personal representative has been appointed.