However, a family friend registered a caveat against the estate preventing our client from applying for a Grant and taking his legacy. The friend was in possession of a will the Deceased signed in 2012. The family friend was the sole beneficiary under that will and was intending to admit it to probate. The will was a homemade will, prepared on a form available online or at stationary shops.
Our client was convinced that the Deceased revoked the will. Having lost contact with the family friend, our client’s deceased half-brother no longer wanted the friend to inherit. He therefore wrote a note on a blank will form to this effect.
We were on a verge of really contentious proceedings, in which our client and the family friend would argue as to whether the note effectively revoked the home made will. However, following contact with the witnesses to the 2012 will, it became apparent that the Deceased had obtained his witnesses’ signatures at a time when the will was a blank template. Only after the witnesses signed, when he was at home on him own, the Deceased inserted his wishes and signed the will himself.
The discovery of this evidence meant that the will was invalidly made in the first place. The estate could not be administered in accordance with an invalid will. Without a long and contentious court process, we were able to convince the Registry that the Deceased passed away intestate, leaving our client as the only beneficiary of his estate under the intestacy rules.
