When Family Care Creates Legal Rights: Contract, Unjust Enrichment, and Estate Claims

Rogers v Wills [2025] (Ch D, England & Wales High Court)

In many families, when an elderly parent needs care, a son or daughter steps in. Often this happens without a formal agreement, without invoices, and without any explicit discussion of payment. It is simply what families do. A recent decision from the English High Court is a reminder that these arrangements (however informal) can give rise to enforceable legal rights against an estate.

What Happened

A daughter provided substantial care for her elderly mother during her final years. There was no written care agreement, no formal employment arrangement, and no regular invoices. The mother died, and the daughter brought a claim against the estate for the value of the care she had provided.

The estate resisted on two grounds: first, that there was no binding contract; and second, that even if there were some obligation, it could not amount to a claim in unjust enrichment because the daughter had simply been doing what any caring family member would do.

The court rejected both arguments and found for the daughter.

On Contract: Capacity and Informal Agreements

The court held that a binding contract had been formed between the mother and daughter for care services at a reasonable price. This required addressing two points.

First, contractual capacity. The mother had been diagnosed with dementia. The estate argued that this negated her capacity to enter into a contract. The court disagreed, and this is an important legal point: a dementia diagnosis does not of itself extinguish contractual capacity. Capacity is assessed functionally and at the time of the transaction - the question is whether the person understood the nature and effect of what they were agreeing to at that moment, not whether they carried a medical label. Capacity can fluctuate, and many people with dementia retain legal capacity for significant periods.

Second, contract formation. An informal agreement for services at a reasonable rate was sufficient to constitute a binding contract. There is no requirement that a care agreement be in writing or follow a particular form. The conduct of the parties - care provided, accepted, and expected to be compensated - was enough.

On Unjust Enrichment: Free Acceptance

The court also upheld the claim in unjust enrichment, applying the doctrine of free acceptance. Where a person accepts a benefit knowing that the provider expects payment, and does nothing to indicate that payment is not expected, the recipient cannot later insist that the benefit was a gift.

The mother had accepted substantial care services knowing that there was an expectation of payment. Even if the contract analysis had failed, the unjust enrichment claim would have succeeded independently.

What This Means for Estate Planning

This decision has direct implications for estate planning and estate administration in any common law jurisdiction.

For elderly clients: informal care arrangements with family members or other individuals should be documented. A simple letter of engagement or even a written note recording the agreement and the expected remuneration provides clarity and avoids contested estate claims. If a client intends a care arrangement to be gratuitous, a gift, that too should be clearly recorded.

For executors and beneficiaries: claims by family carers are a real risk and must be investigated before distributing an estate. The absence of a formal agreement does not mean the absence of a legal obligation.

For practitioners advising on capacity: a dementia diagnosis in a client's file is not a reason to assume that the client lacked capacity to enter into earlier transactions. A contemporaneous capacity assessment by the advising solicitor, or by a medical professional, provides evidence if the matter is later contested.

Singapore Relevance  Singapore law recognises both contractual and unjust enrichment claims against estates, and follows the same common law framework on testamentary and contractual capacity. Informal care arrangements within families are extremely common in Singapore (particularly in multi-generational households) and this decision is a reminder that such arrangements can give rise to legally enforceable obligations. Estate planners and executors in Singapore should be alert to the possibility of carer claims. Practitioners advising elderly clients on estate planning should consider whether informal care arrangements warrant formal documentation - both to protect the carer's interests and to give the estate clear boundaries. Of course, the big caveat here is that we do not know exactly how our Courts would decide if a case on similar facts were to arise in Singapore. There are many instances where we have taken a slightly different jurisprudential stance from English Law.

This post is an elaborated explanation and opinion piece based on the weekly legal intelligence featured in The Common Law Docket, published by Helius Law LLC. The Common Law Docket is posted on the Helius Law LLC LinkedIn page every week.

Disclaimer: This blog post is published by Helius Law LLC for general information and educational purposes only. Nothing in this post constitutes legal advice and it should not be relied upon as such. Readers should obtain specific legal advice relevant to their own circumstances from a qualified solicitor. All case law references are based on information available at the date of publication.