Estate of the late Edward Watson: survivorship and legacies
Email from the supervising partner
Scenario scenario-001 — Legal Writing
From: Senior Partner To: Trainee Subject: Mrs Watson — please draft a letter Mrs Eleanor Watson came to see me last week. Her husband Edward passed away in February. She is in some distress — she lost her sister in the same year — and she is worried that David and Emma, Edward's adult children from his first marriage, are going to "take everything from her". Edward and Eleanor owned the family home as beneficial joint tenants. There was no separation of the beneficial interest. Edward made a will in 2018: it leaves £10,000 each to David and Emma and the residue to Eleanor. The estate residue consists of an investment account worth approximately £105,000 at the date of death. Three things I want you to cover: (1) whether the family home forms part of Edward's estate at all; (2) how the £10,000 legacies to David and Emma are funded and whether Eleanor is at risk of having to find that money herself; (3) what Eleanor needs to do in the next few weeks. Plain English. Lead with the bottom line — that first paragraph needs to do most of the reassurance work.
What a strong answer looks like
Model answer outline (public summary)
- Open with a BLUF paragraph that immediately reassures: the house is hers outright, the legacies do not come from her personal savings, and there is nothing urgent requiring her to act today.
- Explain survivorship in plain English without naming the doctrine — 'because the house was in joint names, it passes to you automatically on Edward's death'.
- Explain how pecuniary legacies are funded in plain English: the £20,000 comes out of the £105,000 investment account before the residue reaches Eleanor.
- Compute the indicative residue: approximately £85,000 comes to Eleanor — give her the figure, not just the mechanism.
- Close with a clear next-steps paragraph so Eleanor knows what (if anything) she needs to do.
- No statutory citations (Inheritance Act, Wills Act, etc.) to a lay client — plain English throughout.
Illustrative excerpt. Scenario details are practice material only. The live grader presents the full brief and grades your response against the SRA Performance Indicators.
The criteria the Legal Writing station is marked against.
Wills and Probate scenarios at the Legal Writing station require you to explain survivorship, pecuniary legacies and estate administration in plain English to a client who is often in some distress — while applying the law correctly to the specific facts.
Include relevant facts
Addresses the salient facts — joint tenancy, will extract, investment account balance — without including irrelevant material.
Use a logical structure
Three labelled sub-sections track the partner's three questions; the letter is easy to follow for a lay reader.
Advice is client and recipient focused
Demonstrates understanding of Eleanor's emotional state and specific concerns; imparts reassurance early; acknowledges the human dimension.
Use clear, precise, concise and acceptable language
Language is appropriate to a lay client in distress; no statutory citations or legal doctrine labels in the letter itself.
Apply the law correctly to the client's situation
Correctly applies survivorship and residuary funding of pecuniary legacies to the specific facts; computes the indicative residue figure.
Apply the law comprehensively, identifying ethical and professional conduct issues
Writing is sufficiently detailed; any professional-conduct issue is recognised and addressed; next steps are clearly identified.
Performance Indicators quoted verbatim from the SRA’s published SQE2 Assessment Specification. Kellys SQE Examiner grades each attempt against these criteria, indicator by indicator.
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