What is a caveat? Contentious probate solicitor, Jack Dray, explains in this short guide.
If you are an executor you may find that someone has entered a caveat against the estate you are administering. Alternatively, you may wish to contest a Will and have read that you should enter a caveat. But what is a caveat?
When someone dies, the executors who are named in the WIll will need to apply to the Probate Registry for a Grant of Probate. The Grant of Probate (or Letters of Administration, where there. is no Will) allows the executors to administer the estate.
However, someone can prevent a probate application from being processed where there is a dispute regarding the validity of a Will by entering a ‘caveat’. Once a caveat has been entered it prevents the Grant being issued and therefore stops the estate from being administered. Caveats last for six months, though they can be extended.
Caveats should not be used in circumstances where someone is pursuing a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. Their use should be restricted to scenarios where the validity of a Will is being contested (for instance where there are concerns that the maker of the Will did not have testamentary capacity), or where there are serious questions that need to be addressed before a Grant of Probate can safely be issued.
If executors feel that the caveat is unwarranted and want to remove it in order to allow them to get on and administer the estate, then they can lodge what is known as a ‘warning’ at the Probate Registry. After the warning has been lodged, then if the person who entered the caveat wishes to continue to hold up the administration of the estate can enter an ‘appearance’. An apperance will then ‘seal’ the caveat, which makes it permanent. It can then only be removed by a judge.
If an appearance is not entered following a warning being served, then after 14 days the executors will be free to apply to the Probate Registry for the caveat to be removed.
