the case of Joan Blass, a 91 year-old woman with dementia who was \u201csecretly wed\u201d to a younger man who married her without the knowledge of her family<\/a>.<\/p>\nShe did not make a new will, meaning her new husband was entitled to most or all of her estate under intestacy laws, that she was \u201cstripped of all her assets and money\u201d and that she was buried in an unmarked grave, against her family\u2019s wishes, according to Hamilton. However, Joan\u2019s husband, has said he felt she did have capacity to marry him and described the relationship as \u201cloving and caring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Minister Sarah Sackman has said she is now giving \u201cdetailed consideration\u201d to recommendations from the Law Commission that wills should not be automatically revoked upon marriage in a bid to stamp out the practice, acknowledging that the law is \u201coutdated\u201d.<\/p>\n
Blass\u2019s daughter Daphne Franks told The i Paper that changing the law, which has not changed since 1837, \u201cwould remove a lot of the incentive for predators\u201d and warned that \u201cmany people\u201d do not even know that wills are revoked upon marriage.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Sackman, Hamilton said predatory marriage is one of the \u201cmost insidious, cruel examples of fraud\u201d and urged the Government to act quickly to stamp it out.<\/p>\n
The MP also said he had been contacted by a \u201csignificant number of people from across the country\u201d making it \u201cclear\u201d that Blass\u2019s case was \u201cnot an isolated incident\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hamilton said: \u201cGiven the decisive recommendations put forward by the Law Commission\u2026 it\u2019s vital that the Government brings forward new legislation to ensure that more families do not have to suffer the pain and anguish experienced by so many others\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rachel Clawson, an associate professor at Nottingham University, said \u201cit is impossible to know the prevalence of predatory and forced marriage because of its hidden nature and the control involved\u201d but warned it is \u201cknown to be a growing problem from the rise in cases of contested wills\u201d.<\/p>\n
She went on: \u201cConcerns are increasingly being raised about all forms of abuse and exploitation of older people, particularly those with cognitive impairment, for example dementia. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur research shows that predatory marriage \u2013 marrying someone for financial or other wealth gain \u2013 is associated with control and emotional, physical and financial abuse and often, the marriage only comes to light after it has taken place or after the death of victim. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe capacity bar for marriage and wills is different \u2013 the test for marriage is lower than that for making a will, meaning that on the same day a person could have capacity to marry but not make a will.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur research demonstrates that older people are being groomed for marriage by people wanting to inherit their estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew Bishop, a partner at Rothley Law who has given Hamilton legal advice for his campaign, said: \u201cThe rule that marriage revokes a will dates back to 1837 and is considered outdated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt acts as an incentive to abuse\u00a0the vulnerable, and is also not fit for purpose for modern families\u201d.<\/p>\n
As well as the Law Commission\u2019s recommendation that marriage should not automatically revoke a will, Sackman said she would look at proposals to allow electronic wills to be legally valid, improving safeguards around the mental capacity of people making wills, and reducing the age of being able to make a will to 16, among other changes.<\/p>\n
Sackman said: \u201cAs these recommendations illustrate, the reforms proposed by the Law Commission are significant and wide-ranging, they deserve detailed consideration. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government recognises that the current law is outdated, and we must embrace change, but the guiding principle in doing so will be to ensure that reform does not compromise existing freedoms or protecting the elderly and vulnerable in society from undue influence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government will make further announcements in due course, once it has given the report the detailed consideration it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministers are considering a landmark change in the law in a bid to end \u201cpredatory marriage\u201d that sees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,55379,7898,2548,2499,3592,16,15,55380],"class_list":{"0":"post-124630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-forced-marriage","11":"tag-justice","12":"tag-marriage","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-politics-exclusive","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wills"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114555904629330805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}