What Behaviours or Scenarios Can Lead to a Will Dispute

The tragic case of Sotherby’s legend, Nicholas Rayner, was reported in the Daily Mail on Tuesday 31 July 2018. Once a high-flying playboy who had excelled at the Cresta Run, raced his classic Aston Martin across the frozen lake at St Moritz and who had flown his Auster plane in all weathers, once even damaging its wing when he flew too low hitting telephone cables, by 2010 he was a frail unrecognisable stroke victim. His story which was discovered at this point, is, we regret, a typical Will contest scenario. His carer sued him in 2010 on the basis that he had reneged on a promise to give her his Belgravia House. In the subsequent court proceedings it was discovered that his carer had actually defrauded him out of almost £780,000 by persuading him to pay tens of thousands of pounds in fictitious school fees for a daughter that she did not have. She also ran up a colossal £160,000 bill for personal telephone calls. She was ordered to repay 1.2 m, a sum which included interest. However she seems to have spent or disposed of the money as Rayner didn’t get a penny.

Tragically, this is a typical scenario in Will contest claims – a vulnerable adult with money and a ruthless individual who takes full advantage. The patterns of behaviour in this scenario tend to be the same, and include some of the following:

1. A sudden rekindling of relations after many years of animosity or an unexpected close friendship with a stranger or neighbour after which nearer or close relatives (often including the children of the victim) have difficulty in establishing contact with him or her;
2. There then follows a period when during the times it is possible to actually communicate with the victim, he or she begin to suggest unfounded actions against innocent relatives; typically an attempt to exhort money or the failure to return money loaned that was actually a gift;
3. Often the individual who is manoeuvring to take over the individuals life moves in with him or her and will take over all communications, to include answering the telephone;
4. As with Mr Rayner, there is always a mental health issue arising from a stroke, Alzheimer’s or Dementia, weakening the victims ability to resist what amount to attacks against their estate and their ability to make their own decisions, in particular any testamentary decisions governed by their Will;
5. If a new Will is commissioned during this period it is often “home-made” or with a Solicitor who has had no previous dealings with the victim;
6. The perpetrator is seen to take more holidays, typically abroad – more often than not he or she is seen driving a new car;
7. When the victim of Will fraud eventually dies, the family are not informed or if they are they are told the victim didn’t want them to attend his or her funeral and again spurious and/or slanderous reasons are given for this;
8. When attempts by near relatives are made following the death of the Will fraud victim to obtain a copy of the Will from the perpetrators Solicitors, they are told it is confidential and sight of it is refused, notwithstanding that following the Grant of Probate, it becomes a public document anyway;
9. When the Will is eventually seen, it is found that the victim’s signature is witnessed by two individuals known only to the perpetrator.

If you consider that any of these apply to you, then please do not hesitate to contact us for a confidential no strings chat.