Bonita Walters

Bonita specialises in contested Wills, inheritance and trust disputes and also in disputes involving mental capacity, properties and professional negligence.

Bonita Walters is a Partner and Head of the Contentious Trusts & Probate team. She has over 20 years of litigation experience and specialises exclusively in contested Wills, inheritance and trust disputes and also in disputes involving mental capacity, properties and professional negligence.

Bonita acts for individuals, personal representatives/trustees, beneficiaries, and attorneys/deputies. She is ranked as Band 1 in the Chambers & Partners High Net Worth Guide for her work in private wealth disputes and is credited with driving the team “forward to great things”. She is a Legal 500 Recommended Lawyer and is described as “an excellent litigator in wills and trusts” and “very experienced with a real skill in negotiating a good deal” Clients have commented that “we could not have been recommended a better legal personality and practice to work with”.

Bonita is a member of the Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists (ACTAPS) and the South West Court of Protection Practitioners Association (CoPPA). She is also a member of the Agricultural Law Association. Bonita is also a qualified and accredited mediator.

How Bonita can help you

Bonita specialises in advising individuals, personal representatives and beneficiaries, attorneys/deputies, health professionals and care providers, on a wide range of inheritance, trust, mental capacity matters and private wealth/property disputes.

Bonita’s practice includes advising on:

• Contested inheritance and trust disputes;
• Claims for financial provision from a deceased’s estate under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975;
• Estoppel claims
• Interpretation of wills
• Contested Court of Protection applications;
• Contesting the validity of Wills (due to lack of testamentary capacity and/or want of knowledge and approval/undue influence);
• Disputes with executors/trustees/beneficiaries;
• Negligence claims against solicitors in relation to Will drafting and the construction of Wills or mistakes in Wills, estate administration and property transactions;
• Removal of executors/trustees
• Mental capacity law;
• Judicial reviews;
• Investigation of financial abuse;
• Property disputes

Experience

• Representing a spouse in a claim for financial provision from her husband’s estate involving a farming partnership and competing testamentary capacity/estoppel claims;
• Advising a cohabitee of over 30 years in a heavily contested statutory Will application involving multi parties, vexatious complaints to the Office of Public Guardian and abusive/violent conduct;
• Representing executor in an action against a former attorney for serious financial abuse.
• Acting for a minor in a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 against her father’s estate comprising of UK and overseas assets and involving conflicting jurisdiction;
• Acting for the deputy and litigation friend of Kenneth John Richards in the case of Richards v (1) Worcestershire County Council (2) South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group ([2017] EWCA CIV 1998) in which she successfully opposed the Defendants’ appeal to the Court of Appeal.
• Advising claimants in proceedings involving complex and significant boundary issues, historical documents and principles of land law
• Acting for a beneficiary under a trust who was denied their entitlement for decades in the claim for inquiry/accounts, breach of trust and removal of trustee.
• Advising a widow in complex damages claim against will writer for negligent/poor drafting of her late husband’s will