from
ore
M
The
Archers
– where there’s a Will, there’s a
disappointed brother…
As faithful readers may recall, I have
written about the Archers before and
the show is, after all, designed to reflect
everyday life. A recent storyline involved
Ed Grundy and his family, who have
been staying with his girlfriend Emma’s
parents for a while due to lack of funds,
taking a tenancy of a house owned by
Ed’s older brother Will – Will lets out
this house for income as he gets free
accommodation as part of his job as a
gamekeeper.
So you might be wondering how on earth
one brother is a man of property, while
the other is not at all well off.
Unfortunately, it was all down to
someone failing to update their Will.
To go back to the beginning, curiously,
the house in question (Number 1, The
Green) was where Emma actually grew
up when her family lived there as council
36
tenants. Her parents bought the house
under the Right to Buy scheme in the
early 1990s, and when they upscaled
later on, a local developer bought the
house to add to his portfolio of rental
properties.
Moving on to 2007, an aged Grundy aunt
was on her deathbed. When she died,
it turned out that she had a Will written
after Will was born, which left him a
substantial share of her estate – but she
never updated her Will when Ed arrived
and so he received nothing, against the
£120,000 which passed to his brother.
Will bought the house and started to
receive the rental income, while things
for Ed went from bad to worse…
Of course, it is sometimes possible to
change a Will after the testator’s death
but this needs proper legal advice and in
this case, as Archers fans will know, Will
and Ed are not big on brotherly love and
it is highly unlikely that Will would have
shared his inheritance with Ed.
The moral, therefore, is to regularly
review your Will and update it as
needed, particularly on the occasion
big events like gaining or losing family
members, births, marriage, divorce etc.
As with many things in life prevention
is better than cure and our very busy
inheritance dispute team is testament
that many people are not keeping
their Wills up to date. See me or my
colleagues in the Probate, Trusts and
Wills Department for further advice and
assistance, to ensure your affairs don’t
turn into a soap opera!
By Rebecca Haywood