Alex acted for the third defendant who challenged the validity of her late mother’s will and, in the alternative, pursued a proprietary estoppel claim against the mother’s house.

The proprietary estoppel claim succeeded, with the trial judge (HHJ Matthews) stating that “In my judgment, this is a paradigm case in which the expectation of the third defendant created by the promise of the deceased should be made good”. As a result the judge declared that the property should be transferred to the third defendant or her nominee. In a separate costs judgment the Judge made a substantial costs order against the claimant.