​The current Covid-19 crisis has thrown up numerous challenges for all of us, but for some the challenges are far greater. Ramsdens Private Client team have many years of experiencing working with people who have dementia and those who care for them. As we begin to return to normality, or indeed the new normal, we wanted to cast a light on what people living with dementia continue to face every day.

​The current lockdown and the resulting isolation has given us all time to think and reflect now that we have been taken away from “normal life” and there is no guarantee as to when this will resume. Now is the perfect time to make sure that our affairs are in order and to ensure that we do not leave anything to chance.

​There is little doubt Covid-19 has caused many issues for families all over the world. We are having to deal with problems that we didn’t know existed only a few months ago. The current pandemic was unimaginable and as a result, people have not had time to plan for a worst case scenario.

​We were recently involved in an unusual and important case to execute a Statutory Will for one of our client’s (‘P’). It became apparent that the most recent Will made by P had been made in secret under undue influence (whereby a person ‘P’ is induced to act otherwise than by their own free will or without adequate attention to the consequences).

This is something which the Court had to consider in the recent case of Clitheroe v Bond [2020]. The case relates to the Estate of Jean Clitheroe who died in September 2017. She had three children, namely, a son and two daughters, one of whom had died in 2009. In 2010 she made her first Will effectively leaving the bulk of her estate to her son John Clitheroe and excluding her daughter Susan Bond.

​As we enter another week of having to deal with Covid-19, many of us are now reflecting on the recent past, missing the “normality” of being able to go to the shops, see family and friends and even just go for a walk without having to don a mask, gloves and maintain a distance of at least 2 metres.

There has been several farming disputes before the courts in recent years and the latest decision in the case of Guest v Guest [2019] reminds us of the remedies available to successful Claimants in proprietary estoppel claims.

The “forfeiture rule” under The Forfeiture Act 1982 prohibits a person from benefiting from the estate of the person he/she unlawfully killed, however the Court has a discretion to waive forfeiture in certain cases.