Wills and Administration of Estates
This subject splits into two halves: the law of wills (validity, interpretation, revocation) and the practice of administering an estate once someone has died.
Formal validity of a will is the most reliably tested single point, because the requirements are precise and small factual variations change the outcome.
Every section of Wills and Administration of Estates
12 sections and 106 topics, in the order they are taught. Open a section to read the topics inside it.
Validity of Wills: Capacity, Intention and Formalities 8 topics
- Testamentary capacity
- Knowledge and approval
- Force, fear, fraud and undue influence
- The section 9 formalities
- A gift to an attesting witness
- Incorporation by reference
- Proving a will in solemn form
- Factors in knowledge and approval
Alteration, Codicils and Revocation of Wills 7 topics
- Alterations before and after execution
- Codicils
- Revocation by marriage or civil partnership
- The effect of divorce or dissolution
- Revocation by a later will or by destruction
- Dependent relative revocation
- Mutual wills
Interpretation of Wills and Failure of Gifts 7 topics
- A will speaks from death
- The types of legacy
- Ademption
- Lapse and survivorship
- Gifts to issue saved by section 33
- The class-closing rules
- The ways a gift can fail
Intestacy Distribution: Administration of Estates Act 1925 6 topics
- Spouse and no issue
- Spouse and issue
- Where there is no surviving spouse
- The statutory trusts
- Adopted children and children born outside marriage
- The complete distribution order
Property Passing Outside the Will or Intestacy 3 topics
- Joint tenancy and survivorship
- Life policies, pensions and nominations
- Gifts with reservation of benefit
Personal Representatives and Grants of Representation 18 topics
- Executors and administrators
- Eligibility and suitability to act
- Appointing an additional representative
- Small payments released without a grant
- Renunciation by an executor
- Power reserved to an executor
- The three principal grants
- Priority for letters of administration with will annexed
- Priority for letters of administration on intestacy
- The chain of representation and grants de bonis non
- Caveats and citations
- Pre-grant evidence and statements of truth
- Interim vesting in the Public Trustee
- Nuances in the number of representatives
- Where a minor or incapacitated person is entitled
- A firm appointed as executor
- Removal and substitution after a grant
- Why power reserved applies only to executors
Estate Administration: Duties, Powers, Debts and Assents 20 topics
- The duties of personal representatives
- A sole representative’s receipt for land
- The statutory powers
- No power to carry on the deceased’s business
- Charging and remuneration
- Protection against unknown claims
- Paying debts in a solvent estate
- Paying debts in an insolvent estate
- Legacies, abatement and assents
- A beneficiary’s remedies
- Receipts where a beneficiary is a minor
- Searches alongside statutory advertisements
- Protection against future and contingent liabilities
- Estate accounts and discharge
- Assents of land and registration
- Which gifts bear inheritance tax
- An express charging clause
- A legacy to an executor
- Which gifts carry intermediate income
- Survival of actions, and fatal accident damages
Post-Death Changes: Disclaimers and Variations 2 topics
- Disclaimers and variations
- How a disclaimer interacts with intestacy
Family Provision: Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 4 topics
- Who may apply, and the time limit
- The standards and the orders available
- The former spouse window and the net estate
- The clean break bar
Inheritance Tax: Transfer Categories and Lifetime Tax 10 topics
- The three categories of lifetime transfer
- The lifetime exemptions
- The exemptions and reliefs as a closed list
- Lifetime tax on a chargeable lifetime transfer
- Death within seven years of a transfer
- The pre-owned asset charge
- When lifetime tax falls due
- Releasing a reserved benefit, and double charges
- The marriage exemption is given per marriage
- Bare trusts and charitable trusts at the boundary
Inheritance Tax: Death Estate, Nil Rate Bands and Reliefs 13 topics
- The death rate and the nil rate band
- The transferable nil rate band
- The residence nil rate band
- Charity exemption and the reduced rate
- Business property relief
- Agricultural property relief
- Quick succession and the other reliefs
- Lifetime planning in practice
- Related property valuation
- Valuation conventions
- Woodlands relief
- Refinements to business property relief
- Loss on sale relief and the capital gains base cost
Pre-Grant Procedure, HM Revenue and Customs, and Excepted Estates 8 topics
- Funding the tax before the grant
- Excepted estates
- Income tax and capital gains tax on the administration
- Who bears the tax, and out of which assets
- Informal payment of administration period tax
- Rates of income tax on estate income
- The corrective account
- The instalment option
See the format
Written for this page only, in the same single best answer format as the 210+ questions in the Wills and Administration of Estates section of the course.
A testator signs his will in his study without anyone else present. Later the same day, two neighbours come to the house together, and in their joint presence he acknowledges that the signature on the document is his own. Both neighbours then sign as witnesses, each in the presence of the other and of the testator. Is the will validly executed?
A will is validly executed if the testator either signs it, or acknowledges an existing signature, in the presence of two witnesses present at the same time, who then each sign in the testator’s presence. Acknowledging an already-written signature satisfies the requirement just as signing in front of the witnesses would. Witnesses do not need to watch the act of writing itself, only to be present when the testator signs or acknowledges the signature, and a witness who benefits under the will affects only whether that witness can keep their gift, not whether execution itself was valid.
Authority: Wills Act 1837, s.9.
Unlock the full Wills and Administration of Estates section
A free account unlocks the first section of Wills and Administration of Estates, including its revision mind-map, immediately.