My vested interest here is that I don't like the thought of someone from the DWP reading wills to see if deceased claimants fiddled the system, and being paid to do so out of my taxes.

The concept of recovery from estate comes from a 1974 court case, Solly. I wonder if anyone thinks there is a possible HRA attack on the whole idea of it? And am I alone in thinking it isn't really on in a civilised society (except for flagrant fraud maybe)?

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't wills and Probate become public once the person dies, which would negate any article 8 challenge.

According to CPAG non contributory benefits (which I assume they are looking at) are not possessions so would not allow a article 1 challenge.

I know that a local council created a post on a trial basis to check with the probate registry, they recovered over £100k in the first year and hence find it cost effective, this was in the area of Social Services funding residential care. I would presume that in the majority of cases the probate would have been handled by solicitors who I would hope would look at the legality of this kind of collection of financial information. That is not to say that there isn't a valid HRA challenge available.

Thanks Simon.

Simon

Whilst not disagreeing with the other points you make, it is arguable that non contributory benefits are possessions for the purposes of Article 1. In Poirrez 40892/98 the ECtHR decided that a French non-contributory disablement allowance was a possession. It appears that the benefit was non contributory and non means-tested - similar to DLA? Poirrez is summarised and discussed in the Journal of Social Security Law Vol. 11 pp. 142/147.