Watertight succession planning to avoid costly legal disputes

Proprietary estoppel and succession planning explained

clock • 4 min read

With careful planning and appropriate advice, it should be possible to avoid costly legal disputes and any adverse consequences to otherwise careful tax and succession planning, according to Helen Barnett and Thomas Klemme

This article will briefly consider the Supreme Court guidance on remedies in proprietary estoppel claims arising out of the recent case of Guest v Guest [2022] before going on to examine the sometimes fraught consequences for succession planning where proprietary estoppel may be a potential issue. The Supreme Court Decision in Guest v Guest The facts of this case involve a typical oral promise to a claimant to gift him the family farm by way of inheritance. In reliance on this, the claimant spent decades working for little to no wages before the parties irreconcilably fell out. Ho...

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