Most people assume that once a person dies, their Will settles all of their estate matters as it acts as a record of what the Deceased wanted, and that it is just a matter for the Executors to carry the Deceased’s wishes out. That assumption is understandable. It is also, in some cases, wrong.
A Will can be challenged on a number of grounds and when it is, the court does not simply take the Will at face value. It asks a more fundamental question: does this Will genuinely reflect what the person who made it actually intended? If the answer is uncertain, the Will cannot stand.
The High Court’s decision in Ugolor and others v Ugolor and another [2026] EWHC 745 (Ch) shows exactly what that scrutiny looks like in practice, and what can happen when a Will fails to withstand it.
A family, a death, and a disputed document
Pamela Ayodele Festous died in March 2020. She had seven children – three who would go on to bring the claim, a son named Cameron, and three others who had been given up for adoption in the 1980s and could not be traced after her death.
Shortly after Pamela died, Cameron produced a handwritten Will he said she had made in 2008. Under that document, he was named as both Executor and the principal beneficiary of her estate. A sum of £100,000 was set aside in trust for the three adopted children, who could not be found. His three siblings who were very much present, and who had remained part of Pamela’s life, received nothing at all. They did not accept it.
The siblings challenged the Will on three grounds: that their mother had not actually known about or approved its contents; that she had lacked the mental capacity to make it; and that Cameron had pressured her into it. What followed was a lengthy legal process, made more complicated still by Cameron’s conduct throughout. He repeatedly failed to comply with court directions and was ultimately barred from defending the claim at all.
That might suggest the outcome was inevitable. But probate law does not work that way.
Why the court still had to examine the evidence
Even where a defendant stops engaging entirely, a court dealing with a disputed Will cannot simply wave the challenge through. It must still satisfy itself, independently, that the Will is invalid before setting it aside. This reflects something important about the nature of these cases. Namely, that the court is not only resolving a disagreement between family members, but also determining whether a document should be recognised as expressing what the Deceased actually wanted. That question requires a proper answer, whatever the opposing party does or fails to do.
The judge therefore considered not only the evidence put forward by the siblings, but also what might reasonably have been said in support of the Will had Cameron been present to argue his case. Only once that exercise was complete could the court reach a conclusion.
What the Will revealed under scrutiny
The document itself raised a number of questions. It was said to have been made in 2008, but the content and presentation suggested otherwise. Throughout the Will, Pamela’s son was referred to by the name Cameron. The difficulty was that Pamela did not use that name for him, and he had not adopted it himself until several years after the date the Will claimed to carry. Whoever had written the document had used a name that would not have featured in Pamela’s vocabulary at the time she was supposed to have put pen to paper.
There was also a broader pattern. Cameron had previously sought to prove a Will made by his late father, which had named him as the sole beneficiary. That Will had not been admitted to probate either, again due to concerns about its authenticity.
None of that, taken alone, would automatically invalidate a Will. Handwritten Wills are capable of being perfectly valid, and it is not unusual for family members to be involved in practical arrangements. But where a Will makes significant provision for one person to the exclusion of others, and where that person may have been involved in its preparation, the court will expect clear evidence that the person making the Will understood and approved what was being signed. That evidence was not there.
The ground that decided the case
The court was not persuaded by the capacity argument. There was insufficient evidence to conclude that Pamela had lacked testamentary capacity. On undue influence, the bar is a high one. Proof of actual coercion is required, not simply evidence of involvement or persuasion. That ground also fell short.
The case turned instead on knowledge and approval. This is a distinct legal requirement, and an important one. Even where a person has capacity, and even where no coercion has taken place, a Will can only be upheld if the court is satisfied that the person making it genuinely knew and approved its contents. Where the circumstances surrounding a Will give rise to suspicion, the burden falls on whoever is seeking to rely on it to provide a satisfactory explanation. In this case, no such explanation was available. The court could not be confident that the Will reflected Pamela’s intentions, and on that basis, it was set aside.
With the Will invalidated, the estate passed instead under the rules of intestacy.
If you are considering challenging a Will
The case offers a clear but measured lesson. A successful challenge does not always depend on proving serious wrongdoing. It may be enough to demonstrate that the circumstances surrounding a Will are such that the court cannot be satisfied as to its validity.
That said, the threshold is a real one. Courts examine the evidence carefully and will not set aside a Will simply because it produces an unequal or unexpected outcome. Each ground of challenge carries its own legal requirements, and a claim needs to be properly evidenced to succeed. The decision also shows that a challenge will not succeed automatically simply because the person defending it fails to engage. The court still required the siblings to make their case, and they had to make it properly.
If you are making or reviewing your own Will
For anyone thinking about putting a Will in place, or reviewing one already made, this case highlights why the process matters as much as the document itself. A Will that cannot be shown to reflect the testator’s genuine, informed wishes is a Will that can be challenged.
Handwritten or homemade Wills can give rise to difficulty where there is no independent record of how the document was prepared or what was discussed at the time. This becomes particularly significant where the Will departs from what might ordinarily be expected. Professional drafting offers protection that goes beyond the wording of the document: it creates a contemporaneous record of instructions, ensures that wishes are clearly understood and properly captured, and significantly reduces the scope for uncertainty or dispute later on.
A practical reminder
The outcome in this case did not turn on a finding of dishonesty or coercion. It turned on the court’s inability to be satisfied that the Will represented what Pamela actually wanted.
That distinction matters. A Will must be proven, not simply asserted. For families, the consequences of getting that wrong can be significant: where a Will cannot be upheld, the estate passes under intestacy, often producing a result very different from what anyone intended.
Buckles’ private client team advises on all aspects of Will drafting, probate, and contested estate matters. If you have concerns about an existing Will, or want to ensure your own wishes are properly recorded, please get in touch.
