UK private wealth disputes legal trends for 2026

London has long been an international centre for the resolution of multijurisdictional legal disputes. This has traditionally held true for private wealth law, and high net worth individuals from all around the globe continue to see the UK as having a uniquely fair and balanced legal regime for settling their conflicts. The adage holds true that litigators have more business during economic uncertainty, and many solicitors reported to Chambers an uptick in instructions this year.

Global instability is also causing litigants who might have settled their disputes in other jurisdictions like the United States to resolve their disputes in London instead. This has led to a further increase in cross-border disputes being resolved in the City.  A solicitor told Chambers that “London is still growing as a centre for litigation. Even international disputes with no London connection often bring in London silks and London firms, sometimes because they anticipate ending up in the UK courts”.

As the US increasingly drives instability both within and outside its own borders, London seems for many clients to be a sensible alternative: “people seem to be turning to London over the US as the latter is being seen as more unpredictable,” said one source. For the Middle East in particular, one respondent also pointed out that “we also have the geographical advantage of being closer” than the United States to the Gulf, and that “people from the Gulf are more likely to have assets in the UK and Europe than in the US”.

With this backdrop of increased activity in the practice area, further underlying currents have come to the fore. Cases increasingly involve a business owned by a trust. One top solicitor told Chambers that “we're seeing an uptick in large trusts and estate disputes involving a business caught in the middle of beneficiaries and trustees”.

Solicitors also mention witnessing the long anticipated great inter-generational wealth transfer: “the great wealth transfer is in full swing with the aging demographic”, the same commenter notes. This wealth transfer has proved more contentious than those of previous generations and “the younger generation seem far more likely to litigate than previous ones”.

Beneficiaries are also challenging their fiduciaries more frequently, for instance with the Re X Trusts litigation in Bermuda. This is “forcing clarity on what different fiduciary roles actually entail. For instance: what are the responsibilities of a protector? It's still not entirely clear what those responsibilities would be”.

Along with these trends has come an increase in issues surrounding capacity. “People have remarkable life expectancy, but we're less good at maintaining mental capacity so there are a number of matters of vulnerable people being taken advantage of,” said another source. “This is not a new trend, but we keep seeing it, it’s showing no signs of slowing down”.

The result is more contested wills being taken to the Court of Protection, often by younger generations looking for new ways to litigate around family wealth.

One practitioner highlighted the role of generational inequality and cost of living pressures as a reason to litigate over even relatively small inheritances. “Even a smaller estate holds more value as the cost of living is driven up,” they said; “I think that really has a play in what people are willing to fight for. People see inheritance as their security”.

Together, these market tendencies demonstrate that the world of contentious trusts and estates is still a lively and dynamic part of the legal industry in the UK. The practice area is showing heightened levels of activity as the great wealth transfer begins and as new generations of beneficiaries prove more litigious than those that came before.