London (Firms): A Private Wealth Disputes Overview

The private wealth disputes landscape remains in a state of flux. Increasingly complex and blended family structures, the uncertain global political arena, the growing internationalisation of HNW families, and rising global transparency around wealth and its ownership, all continue to reshape succession planning and fuel disharmony. Over the past year, the courts have also dealt with a striking number of trustee removal, fiduciary and construction disputes, while discussion on reform of wills law and probate procedure remains active.

Families, trustees and their advisers must be more proactive than ever in anticipating and managing disputes, navigating cross-border conflicts of laws and weighing reputational risk.

Rising Litigation, Changing Families

Contentious probate work continues to feature prominently in the court lists, with will validity, capacity and construction disputes remaining a mainstay of reported decisions over the past year. Modern family structures continue to generate construction disputes, with the courts again having to grapple with what “children” means in an older trust instrument, underlining the importance of careful, regularly reviewed drafting.

Capacity remains a recurring theme, whether in the context of gifts, wills or lasting powers of attorney, with the courts continuing to apply the presumption of capacity robustly while scrutinising the quality of contemporaneous medical evidence, alongside witness evidence and documentation from advisers’ files.

The court of protection continues to feature prominently in private wealth disputes, both as a forum in its own right and through its growing interaction with trust and estate litigation. Vulnerable clients, and the family members and professionals who support them, are likely to see continued scrutiny of capacity, deputyship and safeguarding issues in the year ahead.

Trustees Under Scrutiny

Trustee removal and fiduciary accountability have dominated the courts’ attention. Recent decisions confirm that removal need not depend on proven misconduct; it turns on whether continued administration is compromised and removal is in the beneficiaries’ best interests, even where personal hostility rather than wrongdoing is the driver.

The Privy Council’s long-awaited decision on trust protectors confirmed that, in the absence of contrary wording, protectors exercise an independent discretion when asked to consent to a trustee power, rather than simply checking that trustees acted reasonably – a conclusion with real implications for how consent regimes are drafted.

Families Without Borders

London remains an attractive base for international families, but the global nature of wealth continues to generate disputes with complex cross-border dimensions, spanning domicile, forced heirship, choice of law, and enforcement of foreign judgments.

Growing global transparency, including the wider exchange of beneficial ownership and tax information between jurisdictions, means that family wealth structures risk being more visible than ever before. This serves to raise the stakes for families and their advisers, increasing the risk that historic arrangements will come under scrutiny and that disputes, once private, will become public.

Divorce, Trusts and Disclosure

The Supreme Court’s decision in Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26 on the scope of the sharing principle in financial remedy proceedings potentially has significant implications for trust planning, confirming that non-matrimonial property, including assets transferred into a spouse’s name for tax planning purposes, does not automatically become shareable on divorce simply by virtue of the transfer or, without more, through the passage of time.

Costs Under Scrutiny

Costs continue to command close attention in contentious trust and probate work. The courts have shown a willingness to scrutinise the reasonableness of costs incurred by executors, trustees and administrators, and to question whether a party’s conduct of litigation justifies departure from the usual costs rules.

Where litigation is pursued unreasonably, or as leverage rather than on its genuine merits, the courts have made indemnity costs orders and, in some cases, proceeded to deprive a trustee or executor of their usual right to be indemnified from the estate or trust fund. This continued focus on costs, alongside the availability of mediation and other means of alternative dispute resolution, reflects a broader effort by the courts to encourage parties to resolve disputes proportionately, and to discourage litigation conducted for its own sake.

Plans for Reform

Reform of wills law remains on the horizon. Following the Law Commission’s May 2025 report and draft Bill proposing the most significant overhaul of wills legislation in over a century, including greater flexibility in execution, a Mental Capacity Act-based test for testamentary capacity, enhanced safeguards for vulnerable testators and provision for electronic wills, the proposals remain subject to government review. The Non-Contentious Probate Rules have also been amended, with further, more fundamental reform of the probate process under active review. Separately, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill remains under parliamentary consideration; if enacted, it may in time raise new questions about the interaction between the forfeiture rule and lawful assistance in dying.

A further area to watch is the government’s ongoing consultation on cohabitation reform, part of a wider review of financial remedies and cohabitee rights, which raises the question of whether cohabiting couples should acquire intestacy rights and expanded standing under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. Whatever the outcome, practitioners are likely to see increased scrutiny of cohabitation evidence and family structure in the run-up to any reform. In addition, any reform is likely to bring an initial period of uncertainty, and potential litigation, as practitioners and the courts adapt to new legislation.

Opportunities and Challenges Ahead

The private wealth disputes landscape in England and Wales continues to evolve rapidly. Families must proactively manage risk, address capacity issues, and plan succession carefully, while trustees face growing scrutiny of how they exercise their powers and engage with beneficiaries.

Wealth internationalisation and incoming legislative reform present both challenges and opportunities. Through early advice, transparency, and robust governance frameworks, families and their advisers can minimise dispute risk and protect legacies for future generations.