Families at war
Date: 16 October 2009
Authors: Michael Tringham
Issue: Vol 159, Issue 7389
Categories: Features, Wills & probate
I am indebted to Charlotte Watts of the charity litigation team at Wilsons Solicitors LLP for highlighting a recent case about a family unhappy about a legacy to a charity.
She says of Ritchie, Ritchie and Others v National Osteoporosis Society and Others [2009] EWHC 709 (Ch) that “challenges based on testamentary capacity are becoming ever more common, and this increase is likely to continue as the population ages”.
Mrs Ritchie’s “delusions”
By a 1998 will, prepared by her solicitor eight years before she died, Mrs Ritchie left her entire £2.5m estate to the National Osteoporosis Society, apart from a £5,000 legacy to her local church. She had told her solicitor that her children (who received nothing) were well provided for and also referred to a history of violence towards her.
The Ritchie children claimed that their late mother suffered from a disorder of the mind which had poisoned her affections against them and these delusions had caused her to disinherit them. The Wilsons team report that the case turned on two points: whether or not the statements made by Mrs Ritchie about her children were true; and if they were not true, whether she believed them.
The judge held that Mrs Ritchie’s allegations were not true and the medical evidence suggested that she was suffering from paranoia and believed the allegations to be true. As there was no rational reason why she would have disinherited her children, it followed that the delusions caused her to disinherit her children and that the will was therefore invalid for lack of capacity.
Mother “coerced”
Earlier this month Dr Christine Gill successfully contested her late mother’s will on the grounds that her father—described by Judge James Allen QC as a “bully” and “domineering”—had forced her mother to leave the family’s £2.34m Yorkshire estate to the RSPCA.
Dr Gill, an only child, had devoted most of her spare time over a period of more than 30 years to voluntarily helping out at the farm and been given repeated assurances that she would inherit the estate when her parents died. It was only when her mother died in 2006 that she saw her will.
This case may have further to run.
The RSPCA, which is to appeal against the ruling, has contradicted published claims that Dr Gill had offered the charity three quarters of the estate more than two years ago. A spokesman added that the charity had offered her £650,000 plus costs to drop the case—more than she would have been left with if she had given up three quarters of the estate.
Family “tensions”
Another probate case in the news recently involved two sisters who claimed that their father had promised to leave his £231,000 estate to them and not to his second wife: their claim, on grounds of “proprietary estoppel”, hinged on £100 monthly payments they had made to him and his first (late) wife for 20 years.
But Judge Geraldine Andrews rejected their case, saying that the payments were made “solely in return for an advance on their inheritance”. The judge added that she was “disappointed” that both sides had not been able to reach a compromise in the case, adding she had got the impression she “had not been told the full story”.
Sailor’s “dry land” will stands
On a happier note, Judge Langan ruled at Leeds Civil Justice Centre that a sailor’s oral will was valid—even though it had not been made at sea (the exception under the 1837 Wills Act) but expressed while at his cousin’s St Albans home. The exception still applied because he was under orders to join his ship.
The case concerned Ashley Servoz-Gavin, who died in 2005 without a will but after telling his cousin Christine Dinoulis that he wanted his £582,000 estate to go their aunt, Anne Ayling. Ms Dinoulis would have inherited herself had she not told the court of her cousin’s oral will.
Born in February 1946 to Anne’s twin sister Agnes from a brief VE-Day liaison, Ashley was shunned by most of the family—his mother was divorced by her husband who returned from the Second World War to find her pregnant.
Judge Langan said: “It is perhaps easy to forget how, even in the recent past, birth out of wedlock was a stigma. Mr Servoz-Gavin…appears to have been cold-shouldered by many members of the Ayling family.” But his Auntie Anne, the youngest of ten children, was a shining exception who became a second mother to her nephew.
Michael Tringham, Chairman, Hoopers
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