This seminar covers both the substantive law, including recent jurisprudential developments, and practice and procedure. Topics to be covered include:
- A recap of the legislation (eligible applicants, basis of claim, powers of court) followed by an update on the recent case law and practice on acknowledged problem areas such as able-bodied adult children, financially secure cohabitants, claimants on means-tested benefits, elderly spouses and/or spouses of second marriages;
- Time limits and the pre-action protocol;
- High Court procedure under Order 99 from summons to settlement or hearing: some key points (including possible IHT implications);
- What solicitors should consider when acting for (a) claimants, (b) personal representative defendants and (c) beneficiary defendants;
- What solicitors should consider when drafting wills to minimise the risk of
The session will be delivered by Sheena Grattan. Sheena is a practising Chancery barrister in Northern Ireland specialising in private client work. Previously she was a senior lecturer in the Law School of Queen’s University, Belfast lecturing in Equity (including Trusts), Land Law, Inheritance and the Law and Revenue Law, having started her career as a solicitor in private practice.
Sheena is the author of several legal texts including Succession Law in Northern Ireland (SLS), and, with James Kessler QC, Drafting Trusts & Will Trusts in Northern Ireland (Bloomsbury). She is a founding member of the STEP: Northern Ireland branch and in 2012 was the recipient of a STEP Founder’s award for outstanding achievement. She has been examiner and tutor for both the Administration of Trusts and Administration of Estates components of the STEP / CLT Diploma programme in Northern Ireland since its inception.