Does anyone have experiance with promissory estoppel being used to challenge the distribution of an estate?

[Whatsherusername]

Basically relative died intestate and his sibling is claiming they were promised his property and are trying to claim the estate by the virtue of promissory estoppel. Does anyone know or have any experience in this matter? Many thanks

His sibling will need to prove that an unambiguous promise was made and that, relying on that promise, they have acted in a way that is substantially to their own detriment. They will need to convince the court that, had the promise been withdrawn, they would not have acted in the same way.

… and that it is unconscionable for the court not to hold them to their promise.
Basically this is an unintelligible area of law to non-lawyers and nobody should attempt to make a case without getting professional advice. His sibling will need a solicitor who specialises in property litigation or trust law or chancery. It WILL be expensive. I wouldn’t advise getting embroiled in this kind of litigation if anyone can possibly help it.

Thank you both for your replies. We know promises have also been made to other parties. I am the defendent in this case and the child of the deceased. I also can not see any way the sibling would have been financially comprised in any way. Eg no care was given or no sacrifice was made that i am aware of. As far as i can see this this part of law is really only applied to agricultural estates which is not the case here.

No that’s not true. Some of the key authorities do relate to farming families but you can see these kind of cases in the courts all the time with regard to all types of property. But rarely where the claim is made in a case of an intestate death… I’ve never personally seen that before. Conveniently easy to claim that the property owner has promised all sorts of stuff if they are not around to give their side of the story. The court may view such a claim with scepticism unless there is some fairly clear documentary or other contemporaneous or credible evidence in support (email or text discussions relating to the alleged promises, for example).
Not nice to be the Defendant. Ideally you need specialist advice which is not cheap.

The person claiming the estoppel will need to prove they relied (to their own detriment) on these promises. So if the person had built an extension on the property with their own money following promises of being added to the deeds, or paid all the bills in the house and supported the person, then they may have a case. Our case is partly based on estoppel and we have evidence of payments to builders, etc, but only a witness statement regarding the promises made.