Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Admissible evidence definition

What does Admissible evidence mean? Admissible evidence is evidence a court allows to be relied on at trial or other hearings. Not all material the parties seek to introduce will be admitted. Admissibility, under the rules of evidence, turns on relevance, probative value balanced against prejudicial effect, and compliance with rules excluding or limiting hearsay, opinion, privilege, character and unlawfully obtained material; the judge decides, often on objection or application before trial. In England & Wales, key sources include the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (s78) on exclusion for unfairness, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 on hearsay and bad character, and the Civil Evidence...

Defining Children, Issue and Descendants in Private Client Practice: Status, Parentage and Inheritance Across Wills, Trusts and Intestacy (England and Wales)

Published by a LexisNexis Private Client expert

Practice notes

Meaning of children, issue and descendants in drafting Wills and trusts

Children

The meaning of expressions used in Private Client drafting and legislation to denote children can shift with context. This Practice Note explains the sense in which such references commonly arise in Private Client work.

As a rule, ‘children’ signifies the immediate legitimate descendants, and excludes grandchildren and more remote descendants.
It will at least encompass all children born before the testator’s death (Goodwyn v Goodwyn (1748) 1 Ves. Sen. 226 (not reported by LexisNexis®)).
For dispositions made on or after 1 January 1970, illegitimate children are, on the face of it, included; for those made earlier, they are excluded. See the ‘Illegitimacy’ section below.
Subject to context and Admissible evidence, the term may extend to other generations (potentially the whole line) of descendants, to step-children (Re Jeans, Upton v Jeans (1895) 72 LT 835 (not reported by LexisNexis®)) and to adopted children (Barnes Estate v Wilson (1992) 91 DLR (4th) 22 (not reported by LexisNexis®)).
Children from any marriage are included even where the testator does not foresee a further one...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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