Andrew Vinson

Call 2000

vinson@exchangechambers.co.uk

"Andrew is extremely knowledgeable and always prepared to help or assist with an ad hoc query or more meaningful instructions. He is passionate for his clients and while he remains calm, he is also forceful in his points."

The Legal 500 2024
Photo of Andrew Vinson

Wills, Trusts and Probate

Andrew has acted in disputes concerning wills, trusts and probate for over 20 years and has extensive experience in this area. He has been recommended in the legal directories for his chancery practice since 2007 attracting praise as “very commercially minded and a fount of knowledge in chancery matters” and being “very intelligent, as well as being straight-talking, pragmatic and diplomatic. He is sympathetic, honest and does not mess around.” These are skills which Andrew brings to all of his substantial private client work.

Andrew seeks to identify and analyse the true issues in any dispute at the outset and provide clear and tactical advice as to how to deal best with any dispute. He is experienced not only in advocacy at trial and interim hearings but also mediations and settlement meetings and recognises the importance of these.

He regularly deals with:

  • The validity and construction of wills including the failure of gifts
  • Contested wills on the grounds of capacity/want of knowledge and approval/fraud/fraudulent calumny/undue influence/proprietary estoppel
  • Claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
  • Insolvent Estates
  • The variation of dispositions
  • The removal and appointment of personal representatives
  • Breach of duty on the part of personal representatives
  • Jurisdictional issues, including as to the choice of law in relation trusts and the change of the same as well as in relation to the property of deceased individuals
  • Mutual and/or mirror wills
  • Issues arising as to shares and/or voting rights and/or partnership shares upon death.

He has authored the following articles:

Cases

Andrew’s notable private client cases include:

  • Successfully resisting an application to bring a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 by a spouse who had failed to issue in time as she was in custody awaiting trial on an allegation of conspiracy to murder the deceased.
  • Advising, drafting and negotiating a successful outcome to a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 in a multi-million pound estate.
  • Obtaining a freezing injunction against a personal representative based upon allegations of breach of duty and misappropriation of assets.
  • Acting in a professional negligence claim against financial advisors for deficient estate planning.
  • Successfully defending a claim to an estate based upon allegations of proprietary estoppel.
  • Acting for personal representatives in an arbitration concerning the estate’s entitlement under a partnership agreement.
  • Successfully defending various challenges to wills on grounds of undue influence/lack of knowledge and approval/lack of capacity/fraud/fraudulent calumny.