Wills, Probate and Private Client - BHL0101

Assessment 1: Other

Activities providing opportunities for formative assessment will generally be integrated into the teaching and learning process and apply to all components of summative assessment.  The nature of the formative assessment tasks used will be at the discretion of the tutor, to include for example, workshop exercises, quizzes, group discussions. 

Other

Assessment 2: Exam

Post-death aspects Exam
Exams Undertaken as 5 hour block. The course skills element of Legal Writing is assessed via the MSD for BHL0073 – Course Skills which is taught within this module.

Exam

Assessment 1: Exam

Pre-death aspects Exam
Exams Undertaken as 5 hour block. The course skills element of Legal Writing is assessed via the MSD for BHL0073 – Course Skills which is taught within this module.

Course Skills 1 (MLP)

BHL0073 - Course Skills 1 (MLP)

On completion of this module, the student should have an appreciation of the areas of will drafting, estate and capital tax planning, estate administration and advising the elderly client.  Students should have developed an understanding of the underlying principles, objectives and effects of will drafting and of the estate planning opportunities available to the private client.
Skills development is woven throughout the whole of the module with a particular emphasis on legal writing, drafting, interviewing and researching.

Huddersfield Business School

<a href="https://library.hud.ac.uk/readinglists/BHL0101">https://library.hud.ac.uk/readinglists/BHL0101</a>

BHL0101 - Wills, Probate and Private Client

Wills, Probate and Private Client

Understand the elements of pre-grant practice including: the validity, revocation and alteration of wills and codicils; total and partial intestacy; the identification of property passing by will, intestacy or outside of the estate; the valuation of assets and liabilities and the taxable estate


Be familiar with: payment of inheritance tax due; exemptions and reliefs; the principle of cumulation; valuation; accountability and burden and anti-avoidance provisions;

Understand the procedures of post-grant practice including: the collection and realisation of assets; understanding the law relating to claims on the estate; the payment of pecuniary legacies, the vesting of gifted property in the beneficiaries entitled and distribution of the residuary estate and how to raise funds to pay inheritance tax and debts


Understand the elements of making an application for a grant of representation including: the necessity for different types of grant; the main types of grant; the powers and duties of personal representatives and their protection;  the main types of oath for executors or administrators


Develop empathy in cases where elderly clients or incapacitated clients are concerned and identify the possible emotional needs of these clients and their relatives;

Identify the client’s reasonable expectations as to quality and timeliness of service;

Investigate and identify the relevant facts relating to a client’s circumstances, research and identify the relevant legal issues and advise the client on the legal consequences of any proposals in the context of will drafting, probate administration and matters affecting the elderly client; 

Use appropriate precedents for documents, including wills, codicils, powers of attorney, Court of Protection and Probate Registry documents to effect the chosen transaction and to draft the documentation in clear and unambiguous language and using correct grammar;

Use the legal knowledge, skills, procedures and behaviours appropriate to the client;

Recognise and act within the rules of professional conduct;

Identify the client’s goals and alternative means of achieving those goals, particularly in relation to will drafting and the requirements of the elderly client regarding property disposition and Powers of Attorney and deal appropriately with client care;

Understand the operation of legal rules relating to issues particularly pertinent to the elderly client including a knowledge of property disposition (and its connection to residential care funding) together with Powers of Attorney and Deputyships

Identify the overall nature of the matter presented by the client, then plan and progress that matter through a series of steps and decisions including, where appropriate, drafting documentation;

4.	Understand the principles relating to the charge to inheritance tax: on death; on immediately chargeable lifetime transfers; in relation to potentially exempt transfers; on gifts with the reservation of benefit
