When family ‘arrangements’ fall apart: the importance of formalising commercial relationships between relatives

Article written by Alexander Shah, Senior Associate on the Estate Planning team, and Emma Johanson-Brown, Solicitor in our Estate Planning team.

There are no words more likely to cause family estate planners anxiety that “everybody understands the arrangement”. The recent case of Rogers v Wills (Rogers v Wills [2025] EWHC 1367 (Ch)) is a perfect reminder why. A simple agreement to pay a daughter for caring for her mother turned into years of litigation, legal costs that rivalled the amount in dispute, and a family rift that may never fully heal.

In brief

It is easy to understand why a family might leave reimbursement for a relative’s care to trust and goodwill rather than a formal agreement, and why the head of the family might rely on their children’s word. This case shows what can go wrong with that approach. The Court found that Sheila Wills’ daughter, Bernadette, had been promised payment for the care she provided her mother (Rogers v Wills [2025] EWHC 1367 (Ch), [238], [241] and [248]). The lack of a written agreement, and relaxed approach to taking payment, enabled other family members to try to deny its existence.

The consequences were significant: two and a half years of unrecorded, unpaid care; a dispute over what had been promised and what it was worth; a criminal prosecution; a split trial on liability and costs; a separate hearing over a breach of a draft-judgment embargo; and, ultimately, a second trial just to work out how much was owed.

What happened?

The claim concerned the care Bernadette Rogers gave her mother, Sheila, from September 2017 until Sheila’s death in April 2020. Bernadette (the claimant) was one of six surviving siblings; the defendant, her brother Andrew Wills, was executor of their mother’s estate and was sued in that capacity.

From September 2017, following an episode of confusion, Sheila moved into the claimant’s home in Bristol. Over the following two and a half years her health deteriorated, and she died following a fall. The claimant provided care which the court later identified the nearest commercial comparator as ‘a live-in carer, present 24/7, available to provide assistance at any time’ (Rogers v Wills [2026] EWHC 2231 (Ch), [45]).

Before Sheila moved into her daughter’s home in October 2017, she told the claimant that she “wanted to pay her way” and that the claimant would be “paid properly” for looking after her. What that meant was never made clear, but Sheila repeated this to the claimant’s husband and children, and several siblings referred in WhatsApp messages over the following years to the claimant needing to be paid or reimbursed.

Despite this repeated, informal acknowledgment that payment was due, no written agreement was ever drawn up nor rate agreed. The claimant did not invoice or draw payment as she went along. She took and then returned four weekly payments of £50 shortly after Sheila arrived and was paid £350 once when a sibling covered for her but otherwise provided care for over two and a half years without reimbursement.

Shortly before Sheila’s death, the claimant raised the question of payment, and claimed that her bother, the defendant, told her to “just take it”. As such, the claimant took £100,000 from her mother’s account. Her brother then sought to have her prosecuted for theft. She was fortunately acquitted following a jury trial at Bristol Crown Court. Civil proceedings followed in which she claimed £135,000 for the care provided to her mother.

The court held that Sheila and the claimant had entered an informal contract in late 2017 for the claimant to be paid a reasonable price for her care, and that, had there been no contract, the claimant would in any event have succeeded in restitution. A further trial was needed to determine quantum, at which the court ultimately awarded £127,500 , close to but slightly below the sum originally claimed (Rogers v Wills [2026] EWHC 2231 (Ch), [60]-[61]).

Costs

The sum in dispute was £135,000, the value the claimant placed on two and a half years of care; the court ultimately awarded £127,500 plus interest, following a second, dedicated quantum trial.

The estate itself was modest by comparison. In fact, the defendant, as executor, had set aside only £150,000 of the estate to cover the costs of the deceased’s care, meaning the claim (and the costs of litigating it) threatened to consume most or all of the estate’s available funds.

The costs of the liability trial alone, on the claimant’s approved costs budget, were £84,085, with the court ordering an immediate payment on account of £75,685.50 against the defendant personally. The combined costs of a liability trial, a quantum trial, a separate costs hearing and a hearing on the judgment-embargo breach will have absorbed a substantial proportion of the estate.

The human cost

Beyond the financial cost, the proceedings took a heavy toll on the family. The trial judge on liability observed that the litigation had “completely fractured the previously united and close family relationship”, calling it “a tragedy for all concerned” and, given the costs involved, “an expensive tragedy”. The prosecution of the claimant will have undoubtedly taken a toll on her, as would the possibility of a contempt of court order after a draft judgment was inadvertently seen by the claimant’s husband.

What a formal agreement would have avoided

A simple written agreement or letter, signed at the outset in late 2017, recording that the claimant would be paid for care and setting out the basis for that payment would have prevented all of this.

The claimant’s practice of waiting, rather than being paid as she went, can also be criticised. It is the clearest point of contrast with how a third-party carer or agency would have operated: an agency invoices regularly and is paid in the ordinary course, rather than seeking a lump sum from an estate years later. Taking payment contemporaneously, even informally, by bank transfer against a simple invoice or note, would have avoided both the dispute over entitlement and the temptation to self-reimburse after Sheila’s death. It would have created the contemporaneous record the court instead had to reconstruct at trial from years of WhatsApp messages, GP notes and witness recollection.

Practical takeaways

The broader lesson is about consistency. Families should apply the same formality to care and financial arrangements between relatives as they would with anyone else, even, perhaps especially, where trust is high. The natural reluctance to introduce anything that feels transactional creates ambiguity that litigation has to resolve, at a far greater emotional and financial cost than the formality it was avoiding.

For practitioners advising families in this situation, the practical takeaway is simple: whenever a family member is to be paid for care, or for any other service, put that arrangement in writing from the outset and give it a price. The modest discomfort of formalising a family arrangement is a far smaller price than the one this family ultimately paid.

One should never assume that “everyone understands the arrangement”.