Recent Case Law Analysis following James v Scudamore [2023] EWHC 996 (Ch)
About 3 years ago, the matter of James v Scudamore [2023] appeared before the High Court which is now a leading authority when a probate claim could be barred because of the delay on the part of the Claimant. This case made it very clear that the defence of delay or the Doctrine of Laches, applies to will validity challenges.
The Doctrine of Laches is a civil law equitable defence whereby a Defendant argues that the Claimant has unnecessarily or deliberately delayed bringing their claim and therefore, because of the Claimant’s delay, the Claimant is barred from bringing a claim. In order for this defence to be successful, it must be unfair or inequitable for the court to allow the claim to continue.
In James v Scudamore, the Claimant sought to challenge the validity of a Codicil of his late father, who died in 2010. The Claimant was legally advised on the validity of the Codicil and his possible challenge in 2013. However, it was not until the main beneficiary who benefitted under the Codicil died in 2019, that the Claimant began his challenge. By this point, many of the key witnesses had died and the claim was eventually issued in 2020, 9 years after the Grant of Probate had been obtained.
The claim was dismissed and, in his judgement, HHJ Matthews included a detailed discussion of the previous case law and through this discussion, he established two principles of what he called the ‘Probate Doctrine of Laches’ which are:
- A claim which has an unjustified delay, which possibly alone and certainly in conjunction with other factors, will be enough to bar a claim;
- Where the delay has led to others’ detrimental reliance on the Claimant’s inaction, such as distribution of an estate, the claim will likewise be barred.
Subsequently, this principle has been applied successfully in a number of probate cases including Bowerman v Bowerman [2025) EWHC 2947 (Ch) and most recently Stephenson v Daly [2026] EWHC 53 (Ch).
What is interesting about Stephenson v Daly is that the Defendant’s counterclaim for a challenge of validity of the will was barred by the Defence of Delay in an estate where a Grant of Probate had not yet been obtained suggesting that time begins to run from the date of death.
Therefore, it is essential that any potential Claimant act quickly in bringing a will validity challenge as recent case law has confirmed that probate claims can be time-barred in the absence of a justified delay. This also provides a possible defence to those who are defending a will challenge where a Claimant has brought their claim too late in the day or where, for example, a beneficiary has acted on the Claimant’s inaction to their detriment.
If you would like to discuss a probate claim, please contact Emma Shepherd at [email protected] or on 0118 9516258.
