Women in Wills hosted a virtual meet up last Thursday with guest speaker Yasmin Hoque. Yasmin is the founding partner of AL-HQ Law & More, a faith-inspired legal practice, specialising in Islamic Wills. Yasmin qualified as a solicitor in 2010 having trained as a defendant litigator working on multimillion pound catastrophic injury, medical negligence, and commercial litigation cases with law firms such as Clyde & Co and Ashurst.
Yasmin’s presentation touched on her development away from commercial litigation towards something closer to heart. She discussed the unexpected nature of life and consequently the importance of estate planning and having difficult conversations with family members.
Yasmin shared her general tips and advice on faith-based estate planning. The group acknowledged the importance of this topic due to the growing Muslim population (revealed in the recent census, 2021).
Much of the discussion was centred around the importance of discussing elements such as marriage in faith-based estates. For example, Nikkah – the Islamic marriage contract – is not recognised as binding in English law. Yasmin discussed how wills and inheritance will be impacted based on whether the client is a spouse of a cohabiting couple.
Yasmin discussed practical considerations such as Sharia-compliant Wills, which aim to adhere to the black letter of the scripture which designates specific shares to specific inheritors. She suggested that if practitioners are writing a Sharia-compliant will the best practice is to obtain a declaration of agreement from beneficiaries.
The discussion was invaluable to our members and provided many with confidence to discuss the topic with their clients and provide greater advice.
We will be continuing the conversation on this important topic over on the Women in Wills LinkedIn page.
For more events like this, please sign up to our Women in Wills newsletter and LinkedIn page.
Thank you to our sponsors, Arken.legal and Estatesearch.
