See You in Court

War and Peace meet Mills and Boon

Every year hundreds of cases involving disputed wills are heard in law courts throughout England and Wales but only a handful are documented in any significant detail in the national press.

These cases are important for solicitors for legal reasons: some set precedents, for example. For general readers, these cases - with their family disputes, often involving millions of pounds - make for fascinating reading.

But they can also provide insights into what to do, and not do, with your own will. For example, many cases involve wills of testators who left it too late: they made their final wills when they were, or could plausibly be accused of being, gaga.

Many cases involve blended families, highlighting the importance of shrewd professionally-drafted wills if you or your partner have children from relationships with other people.

Newspaper accounts barely - if understandably - skim the surface. When an elderly woman left her estate to the Chinese owners of a Chinese restaurant, the headlines made it sound as if she was rewarding them because she loved their dumplings. In fact, she had a long and deep personal relationship with that family.

When a widow lost a High Court case that saw her husband's estate go to his children from his first marriage, she was portrayed as a stereotypical Evil Stepmother. But the Court of Appeals saw things her way and provided insights into a complex familial drama. Other cases involving stepmothers showed that the evil parties could be the children.

Court cases can run for several days, even weeks, and the decisions can run to between 5000 and 10,000 words. Newspaper accounts tend to between 400 and 800 words, and even the longest of them can plumb only the shallows.

The judgement transcripts are richer in detail, often providing full historical backgrounds. Legal language notwithstanding, many of these cases read like novels.

In one well-reported case, a Polish woman sued for a greater share of her Cyprus-born fiancé's estate. Media reports accurately noted that he lived in England for most of his adult life, but only the court transcript revealed why he left Cyprus in the first place: he fled Cyprus to save his life. He broke his engagement to his Cypriot girlfriend in a manner that insulted the honour of her family. Revenge was in the air.

Safe in London, he then went on to have relationships with several other women during a lifetime with plenty of melodrama - of the normal, not homicidal kind.