Murray Beith Murray LLP is a leading Scottish private client law firm.
For 175 years we have specialised in meeting the legal, financial and administrative needs of individuals and families, family trusts, charities and private companies.
Family relationships can be challenging, and parents and children or spouses may become estranged for a wide variety of reasons. As a result, you could be wondering whether they may still be able to inherit from your estate. In this article, we look at what is known in law as ‘legal rights’ and how they might apply in different circumstances.
There are many ways that couples might choose to formalise their relationship, whether that involves cohabitation, getting married or entering a civil partnership. The law in Scotland has recently changed to allow different sex couples to enter into a civil partnership. (See our previous blog, Mixed civil partnership). In light of this development, couples may wish to give some consideration to the differences in the treatment of these approaches in the law of succession.
Family businesses face most of the same challenges and difficulties as all other businesses, but have the added complication of involving important personal relationships. Such relationships can cause the business to have different considerations and priorities, and when things go wrong, the consequences can be even more severe. In our experience, problems relating to ownership and management of a family business tend to be less prominent during the first generation of ownership, but we typically see problems start to arise when the second generation of family members is looking to step in or take over.
Many people believe that estate planning and writing a Will are the same thing. However, although Will writing is an important aspect of estate planning, the process involves much more. Estate planning goes further than Will writing to clarify your wishes about your finances, health, care, and more. In this article, we look at the interaction between Will writing and estate planning to help you determine which process is right for you.
Murray Beith Murray Partner, Peter Shand, writes in The Scotsman today. Read the full article below, republished by kind permission of The Scotsman:
