Sealed wills in an age of transparency

Johnson v HM Attorney General [2025] EWHC 1943 (Ch)

Jordan Holland

Legal practitioners in the field of trusts and estates will doubtless be aware of the increasing emphasis on the need for transparency and "open justice" in English court proceedings. Thus, applications made under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958, which for many years were routinely heard in private, are now routinely determined in open court and even the need to protect the privacy of minors or persons lacking capacity will not be sufficient to displace this presumption: see V v T [2014] EWHC 3432 (Ch) and MN v OP [2019] EWCA Civ 679. It has likewise become increasingly common for trustees' blessing applications to be heard in public and to result in a published (and non-anonymised) judgment.