Whether you watched the programme or not (I didn’t) we all appear to know the character Amos Brearly played by Ronald Magill who died in September, aged 87.
We would all know his picture as he appeared in our newspapers and television screens for almost twenty years from 1972, being famous for his big bushy sideburns.
He was landlord of the Woolpack pub in the Yorkshire village and who ultimately married another long term character Annie Sugden.
In real life he left the money to a man that nursed him through the final years of his life. The remaining £830,000 before inheritance tax went to his two brothers. This way he ensured that the man that helped him through those ten years didn’t have to sell to pay the tax bill as it was due from the remaining cash funds.
One worry about similar cases we often hear about is undue influence of people who nurse others through latter years of people’s lives. We are not in any way suggesting that to be the case here, but over and over again there are other cases where the family receive nothing and find out the nurse or carer has inherited everything through a last minute changed or updated will.
While it’s always the obligation of the instruction taker of the will to ensure the client is not being coerced or even forced into making a ‘wrong’ decision, it is always just as right that the person making the will (having capacity) can decide what to do with their estate especially if someone has been kind enough to care for the person in question while the family may or may not have helped during this same period.
This is always a difficult question and situation to deal with and it takes a trained professional like those from LSUK to help clients along the correct legal path, but without influencing their decisions. Consultants do not allow other people to be present during an appointment to take instructions unless health over-rides that need.
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