What is the point of a contract

[OwlHoot]

Why should you be entitled to somebody else's money just because you're related to them?

Better if the state gets all your money when you die; then the problem goes away.

What an idiot.

Don't you think the state is powerful and greedy enough as it is, without all the personal wealth of everyone in the country going through their hands over the course of a few decades?

[d000hg]

Why should you be entitled to somebody else's money just because you're related to them?

As a default position it's fine, but in opposition to the deceased's wishes, totally agree.

[Bacchus]

and elderly or dying people are sometimes not mentally fit to make independent rational decisions. So there is a long precedent of setting aside unfair, frivolous, or quixotic wills.

She made the will two years before she died and qualified it with a covering letter. Quite a long time to remain unfair, frivolous, and quixotic...

[vetran]

On LBC they are spinning it as its fair because the money is buying the daughter a house to avoid her claiming housing benefit.

[VectraMan]

Why should you be entitled to somebody else's money just because you're related to them?

Better if the state gets all your money when you die; then the problem goes away.

[OwlHoot]

Arrogant judges have just made wills a lot more complicated.

Huh? Wills are not contracts in any sense, and the law has never (at least since the Conquest) been obliged to see they are honoured regardless.

In Saxon law they were, because it was believed a dying person was closest to God and their final utterances therefore most fit to be respected.

But in Norman law and ever since, the prevailing common sense view has been that the dead have no rights, and elderly or dying people are sometimes not mentally fit to make independent rational decisions. So there is a long precedent of setting aside unfair, frivolous, or quixotic wills.

I'm sure there is a section on this in Ranulf de Glanville's Tractatus de Legibus, written around 1188, but I can't find an online copy to check.

[Bacchus]

Indeed she seems to have made her feelings and wishes fairly clear. Whilst I am unlikely to agree with them personally that doesn't matter, they were clear & legal.

Arrogant judges have just made wills a lot more complicated.

Poor woman must be turning in her grave with a huge chunk of her hard-earned being given to the little ingrate.

The other bit that I found a little disturbing was

She'll now be able to buy her housing association property and won't lose her state benefits

So the little scrubber and her brood get a £164k windfall due to an imbecilic decision and the taxpayer continues to fund their X-Boxes!!!

[d000hg]

You'd rather abdicate your morality to the government? You seriously think what you are allowed to do and what you should do are the same thing? Perhaps you believe the laws should be made much, much stricter so that nothing immoral is legal any more, so you don't have to take the trouble to use your conscience?

[alphadog]

Very dodgy precedent this. There seems to be a creep towards doing 'what is right and proper' rather than what is required by the law in this country.

The other example that springs to mind is the new govt edict for companies to 'pay the taxes that they have a moral duty to pay'.

FFS if it's not a law, it shouldn't be required and if change is required, then change the law.

All of this nancy 'do what is right' business is impossible to define.

[vetran]

Indeed she seems to have made her feelings and wishes fairly clear. Whilst I am unlikely to agree with them personally that doesn't matter, they were clear & legal.

Arrogant judges have just made wills a lot more complicated.

[SimonMac]

Tenuous link, but a will is a kind of contract, good enough for a parody thread

Woman rejected by mother in will wins £164k inheritance - BBC News