Mediating estate disputes involving art and heritage property

‘First electricity now telephones. Sometimes I feel as if I were living in an HG Wells novel.’ (Dowager Countess Violet Crawley Downton Abbey).

‘The existence of a dispute over ownership raises a practical problem for anyone seeking to sell the artwork. ... Unless the owner is able to successfully challenge the ownership claim potential buyers ... may well be put off buying the artwork.’ (Art Law And The Business Of Art by Martin Wilson (2022) Edward Elgar Publishing page 361).

Where an artwork appears to be an estate asset (A) and there is a dispute about the formal or substantive validity of the deceased testator’s (T’s) will or a claim is made in equity on the grounds of proprietary estoppel then until the dispute has been resolved:

• T’s executors/trustees (E/Ts) will not in practice be able to:
• appoint A to a beneficiary...