Adopted man in fight for inheritance
Five years after he found out he was adopted, Eben is in a bitter battle for his piece of his late father’s considerable fortune
HE COULDN’T believe what he was seeing. As he stared at the piece of paper he felt sick to his stomach. His whole life had been a lie. There it was in black and white: the mother and father he’d thought were his flesh and blood were actually his adoptive parents.
“It’s a terrible shock to discover that at age 46. It’s a shock to your whole family, your children, your sense of self,” Eben Maré tells us. “I know it doesn’t make me a different person but it still irritates me because everyone knew except me.”
Now, after five years of dealing with the emotional fallout of this shocking discovery and trying to find his biological parents, he’s locked in a new struggle – this time in court.
It’s the first case of its kind in South Africa. Eben (now 51) is petitioning for the right to inherit from his deceased biological father, who was worth millions.
“I look after myself – I don’t need the money. It’s about justice,” he says resolutely. We’re chatting to him in the stylishly decorated conference room of the bank in Sandton, Johannesburg, where Eben works as a fund manager. He’s also a part-time professor in applied mathematics at the University of Pretoria.
Just as the adoption system failed his biological mother when she tried to find him later in her life, the judicial system is standing in the way of him receiving the inheritance he believes is rightfully his.
His biological father, Pieter André Bezuidenhout, was murdered in 2016 about three and a half years after their initial meeting.
After being reunited they’d been in the process of forming a strong bond, so Eben was devastated to lose his dad. But he was in for another nasty surprise.
Pieter – or Pa André as he was known – was the owner of Pretoria transport company Bus Rentals. He wasn’t married when he was murdered and because he died without leaving a will the law stipulates his R86-million estate is to be divided among his four other children. Eben is entitled to nothing.
The estate has driven a wedge between
‘I look after myself – I don’t need the money. It’s about justice’
Eben and his half-brother, Conan Devy (31), who’s challenging Eben’s claim to a portion of their dad’s fortune. Eben finds it a bitter pill to swallow. “It was never contested that I’m his eldest child but here I am and I’m not allowed to inherit? It’s unfair. It’s not my fault I was adopted.”
EBEN was adopted as a newborn baby by a Pretoria couple, who never told him about his biological roots. They didn’t think it was necessary, he says, smiling wryly. He discovered the truth in 2012 when his daughter, Desiré (now 28), visited some of his adoptive father’s family overseas and brought back a family register for interest’s sake. Next to Eben’s name were the words “adopted child”.
He well remembers the shock and disbelief as he read those words. “It’s a what the f**k? moment. It changes your entire frame of reference. Your children discover their grandfather and grandmother aren’t really their grandparents,” he says.
He also has two sons, Eben Jnr (30) and Jean-Jacques (29). With the help of his wife, Amanda (54), who contacted the adoption registry in Pretoria, Eben tracked down his biological parents.
His mother, Dalene le Roux (born Wilken), was a 17-year-old orphan and student nurse when she fell pregnant with him. Dad André was 18 at the time and still at school.
The two were never given the option of raising their child themselves, Eben says. In fact, that’s part of his argument in his legal claim.
Dalene later married another man and had a son with him.
In August 2012 a social worker arranged a meeting between Eben and his biological mom. It was emotional, he recalls. Dalene told him how she’d searched for him a few times over the years but because it had been a closed adoption she could never find him.
She’d kept hoping he’d contact her when he turned 18 – the age at which he’d have been legally allowed to find out who his biological parents were.
“She’d eventually accepted that if her child hadn’t found her he must have died. But how was I meant to find her if I didn’t even know I was adopted?” Eben says.
After their meeting Eben and his family met his biological father and half-sister Adele Bezuidenhout in a Pretoria restaurant. “We were all bowled over by the whole story. I think it was just as big a shock for my dad to meet me and his grandchildren all of a sudden after all those years,” he recalls.
They soon started to forge a close bond and Eben also got to know Conan. Sadly Adele died of respiratory problems in 2015. Eben met his two other half-sisters, Aura Devy from Canada and Jade Moran from the USA, at her funeral.
Just more than a year later, on 7 April 2016, André was shot while at the steering wheel of his bakkie in the driveway of his home in Pretoria West. The murderer was never found and Eben believes it was a hit – his dad was shot five times at close range in the chest, stomach and head. Nothing was stolen.
It was a traumatic time. “I had to identify my dad’s body,” Eben says. “I had to bury him . . .” But he was in for another shock. “Then I had to hear he’d died intestate. In a case like that your wife and children automatically inherit – not the child you’d given up for adoption.” In his application in the high court in Pretoria Eben is challenging the Intestate Succession Act, which states that an adopted child may not inherit from their biological parents if they – as in André’s case – die without having drawn up a will. Eben argues his adoption is invalid because his mother had been forced to give him up against her will. In answer to this claim, Conan’s lawyers have filed documents stating Dalene hadn’t ever contested the adoption. Conan, the only one of Eben’s half-siblings who’s challenging his claim, declined to comment on the case. Eben feels bitter about Conan’s attitude. “I don’t know if he’s speaking on behalf of all the children but I was good enough to help bury my father but not to inherit anything.” Conan confirms he asked Eben to handle their father’s funeral arrangements but says he paid for everything. Eben says he’s sad he’s now estranged not only from his adoptive family but also his biological family on his father’s side. He still sees his biological mother but regrets he didn’t spend more time with André. “I recently became a grandfather to twins – my dad’s great-grandkids. He would’ve been crazy about them. I believe I would’ve made a difference in his life.”