Estate agent’s bid to overturn ancient law to block ‘shopaholic’ sister inheriting £160k from mum
ESTATE agent is fighting a court ruling that awarded his “spendthrift” older sister half their mother’s £325,000 legacy.
John Clitheroe was the main beneficiary but his sibling Sue Bond won £160,000 by contesting it.
Mum Jean left almost all her estate to John, 52, after branding her bank manager daughter a shopaholic who would just “fritter it away”.
But the will was overturned last year after a judge said Jean suffered an intense grief reaction to the 2009 death of her other daughter Debra that “poisoned” her mind about Sue.
The case – likely to have wide repercussions – hinges on a 150-year-old law. John claims it is an unjust restriction on parents’ right to disinherit their children. His barrister Vikram
Sachdeva QC said the siblings’ fight was judged using laws from the 1880s. These risk older people being “wrongly denied autonomy to make their own decisions”.
The QC said this is of public imporAN tance and a 21st century approach should be adopted when a person’s capacity to make a will is questioned.
He is asking a top judge to rule in line with modern law that anyone challenging a will on grounds of mental capacity must prove the deceased was not capable.
The 1880 law puts the burden on the party attempting to uphold the will to prove the writer was lucid.
There was no evidence of mental impairment in 5,000 pages of Liberace fan Jean’s medical records.
Mr Sachdeva told Mrs Justice Falk: “An aging population and increased incidence of dementia mean that sadly testamentary incapacity is an issue which is likely to face a growing number of testators.”
At the original hearing, the High Court heard that Jean, who died aged 76 in 2017, gave detailed reasons for writing Sue, 53, out of her 2013 will. It replaced one from 2010 which also left her very little but gave the bulk of her estate to John.This largely consisted of her home in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. Sue, 53, was left only a ring.
The 2013 will again left John most of her estate but this time his sister was to receive nothing at all.
Jean’s instructions to lawyers about the 2010 legacy claimed Sue was a “shopaholic” and would fritter it away”. She also slammed her alleged “spendthrift ways” in 2013.
The wills were overturned by judge Deputy Master John Linwood last year. At the new hearing Sue’s barrister Thomas Dumont QC urged the judge to dismiss John’s appeal, saying the original judge correctly reached his conclusion on Jean’s state of mind.
Mrs Justice Falk reserved her decision on the appeal until a later date.