Prince Philip's will to be secret for 90 years

[HotChoc10]

'to protect the Queen's dignity,' apparently..

Why the secrecy do you think?

@Dimples13

One child in the Caribbean- it’s no secret

Clearly is to a few of us on this thread. Care to shed some light @Dimples13?

It doesn't sound like a non-Royal's application would succeed

I don’t think that is true. A normal member of the public wouldn’t succeed if they argued the same grounds as Prince Phillip’s executors did, but that’s because most of the population don’t face the immense media interest in every thing they do that the senior royals live with.

The test to seal a will is clearly set out in the rules though - the court can make an order if it is undesirable or inappropriate for it to be public. The President said in his decision here that these words should be given their ordinary meaning, and commented that on that basis, the hurdle established by the rule, whilst requiring an applicant to make out a clear case for departing from the normal rule, is not an especially high one.

I can think if a few instances where a normal person could make a case that it was inappropriate for their will to be published - if they were being harassed by an ex-spouse, for example, and their children were still at risk of harassment, or where they knew that spurious claims would be made by disgruntled family members. Or if they were well-known for some other reason and knew there would huge press curiosity about their finances after their death (I have no idea if Captain Tom Moore’s family made any such application, but that’s the kind of thing I have in mind). Boris Johnson could probably ask his executors to make an application after his death if he still wanted to ensure no-one could be sure of how many children he actually had even after he died…

What about an ordinary person?
Not a celeb, not being harassed, not anything...just privacy.
Near impossible I would imagine

@Roussette

What about an ordinary person? Not a celeb, not being harassed, not anything...just privacy. Near impossible I would imagine

Well obviously because it would be unlikely there would be any grounds. I personally think everyone’s will should be protected from the curiosity of any random who decides to stick their beak in.

No idea if it's the case now, but how much someone had left was always in the local papers, pre internet. My dear old mum and dad, long gone, used to pour over it with an oooh and an ahhh

So basically, near impossible for an ordinary private member of the public to seal their Will

@Roussette

What about an ordinary person? Not a celeb, not being harassed, not anything...just privacy. Near impossible I would imagine

Yes - unless you can meet the hurdle that it would be undesirable and inappropriate to publish your will, then the default will apply. You’d have to get parliament to change the law to change that.

(Of course, in practice though it won’t be the person whose will it is that will be doing anything, as they will be dead. It will be their families, if they have one).