A family has become embroiled in an £800,000 inheritance row after an elderly woman partly tore up her will on her deathbed.
The £800,000 fortune of ‘stubborn and old-fashioned’ 92-year-old Carry Keats is now at the centre of a unique High Court fight between her relatives.
She physically ripped three-quarters of the way through the pages of her will during her final illness in hospital, creating a family drama pitting her five distant cousins against her younger sister – with whom she had a ‘love-hate relationship’.
Under a law passed in 1837 any person can legally revoke a will they have made by tearing it up, so long as the act is carried out within certain guidelines.
But Ana Dilling, a private client lawyer with Rawlings Davy Reeves of Bournemouth, Poole and Wimborne says there are other less dramatic ways to revoke a will.
“This case is obviously a headline grabbing one but Wills can be revoked a number of ways:
- Making a new Will or codicil which specifically revokes any previous Wills
The best way to revoke an existing will is by making a new one (or a codicil) as revocation in writing clearly shows your intention to revoke the previous Will and so that your new wishes can be set out.
- Marrying or forming a civil partnership.
A will can be revoked unintentionally by marrying or forming a civil partnership – in all other cases intention is a necessary requirement of revocation.
- Making a written declaration executed in the same way as a will
Whilst this does work you would then not have any new wishes set out leading to your estate passing under the rules of intestacy.
- Destroying the will.
- If you were to destroy your Will by burning it or tearing it for example you must intend to revoke it.
- It is the original which must be destroyed and not a copy.
- The only way another person can destroy your Will for you (and it be validly revoked) is in your presence and at your direction.
- If you destroy your will this does not revoke necessarily revoke any codicils to you may have made which can then cause confusion.
- In the case we have mentioned there is a partial destruction of the Will – this won’t necessarily revoke the entire Will (just the destroyed parts) unless the parts which have been destroyed are essential (such as the signatures) or without them the Will does not make sense.
- You can’t destroy a Will by writing on it – unless you have made it completely unreadable.
- Destroying your own mutual Will could be seen as a criminal offence ( a mutual Will is a Will made by two or more people who agree not to revoke them without the consent of the others).
- A revocation can be conditional – though we would never advise this as it’s a complicated and uncertain area of law. For example, you would make a new will revoking a previous Will ONLY if you intended marriage to a specific person takes place. FYI – there are far simpler ways of dealing with this particular issue. BUT the Will won’t be revoked if:
- You do not have the necessary mental capacity to understand what you are doing
- The Will has been destroyed by accident (lack of intention)
- You destroy your Will in the mistaken belief that it is invalid or already revoked.
Ana added: “If a Will cannot be found after death there will be a presumption that you have destroyed it with the intention of revoking. If a Will is found destroyed after death the presumption is that it had been destroyed by the deceased with the intention of revoking it.”
◾️For more information about Wills please contact adilling@rawlinsdavyreeves.com
