Explore STEP’s Mental Capacity Hub, where we have pulled together news, features and resources to help you and your clients navigate through issues of capacity.
Mental Capacity content hub
STEP Journal: A ‘gold standard’ for capacity
In an ageing society with increasingly prevalent issues of mental capacity, should this lead to a global LPA to meet the needs of international clients. The intricacies of the situation have prompted STEP to examine if it is possible to harmonise lasting power of attorney (LPA) legislation around the world to create a ‘standard’ or, at the very least, support governments without any such legislation to create laws that would protect vulnerable clients.
Canada: Court examines right to automatically challenge will
The Court of Appeal for Ontario (the Appeal Court) has examined the automatic right to require a will be proven in solemn form under the provinces Rules of Civil Procedure. The rules provide that “an estate trustee or any person appearing to have a financial interest in an estate may make an application…to have a testamentary instrument that is being put forward as the last will of the deceased proved in such manner as the court directs”. The Appeal Court heard a appellant’s arguments that the deceased lacked testamentary capacity and that her will was made in suspicious circumstances. The court agreed with the motion judge that the appellant did not provide sufficient evidence to call into question the validity of the will, noting that “an interested person must meet some minimal evidentiary threshold before a court will accede to a request that a testamentary instrument be proved”. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed (Bitaxis Estate v Bitaxis, 2023 ONCA 66).
STEP Journal: A great step forward
Yue-En Chong TEP explores the new Office of the Public Guardian Online system, used for the online registration of lasting powers of attorney in Singapore.
Webinar replay: When the mental capacity of the business family’s patriarch/matriarch begins to deteriorate
This web-event explores practical considerations and strategies which can be implemented by practitioners and advisors to manage the declining mental capacity of the patriarch/matriarch of the business family.
Employer insight: Mental capacity and your business
We spoke to some of our Employer Partners to explore the challenges that an ageing demographic and a rising prevalence of mental decline present for businesses.
Join the SIG
STEP's Mental Capacity SIG focuses on the increasing importance and relevance of issues concerning capacity in all aspects of legal work relating to inheritance and succession planning. The group aims to ensure that all members are kept up to date with developments and, indeed, are part of the debate and shaping the future where possible.
England and Wales: OPG issues official toolkit on financial decision-making and young people
The Office of the Public Guardian in England and Wales (OPG) has issued an information pack to help parents and carers make finance decisions for young people as part of its commitment to increase public awareness of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 in the context of the transition from childhood to adulthood.
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