Rogue TV ‘heir hunter’ and the £600k row over missing will of society beauty
AN heir hunter who has featured on BBC TV ignored the will of a former society beauty to try to profit from her £600,000 fortune.
But Andrew Fraser now faces a £250,000 legal bill following his ‘beligerent and provocative’ actions over the estate of 1930s model Tessa Amstell.
She left her North London house to her nephew, Martin Amstell, 74, two years before her death, aged 98, in 2011.
But her will was mislaid and not formally admitted to probate, bringing the seemingly abandoned home to the attention of heir hunter Mr Fraser. Heir hunters, or probate researchers, track down missing or unknown relatives entitled to unclaimed estates.
Mr Fraser set about tracing Mrs Amstell’s heirs in an attempt to make a £75,000 commission. He unearthed up to 30 distant relatives and tried to sell the house.
Taking control of Mrs Amstell’s estate ‘with gusto’, he changed the locks on her home, cleared it, and ran up six-figure bills in a bid to ‘play the game and squeeze’ her rightful heir, a court heard.
He even embarked on a hugely expensive 12-month trawl through medical records in a pointless attempt to prove Mrs Amstell had lost the mental capacity to make a will, Judge Nigel Gerald said.
Even after he dropped the challenge to Mr Amstell’s inheritance, Mr Fraser went to court to get him and 22 animal charities also named in the will to pay his £134,000 heir-hunting costs.
Ordering him to pay the entire costs – more than £250,000 – Judge Gerald said he had been ‘primarily focused on his financial gain’.
Judge Gerald said: ‘Mr Fraser … acted in a belligerent and provocative manner which appears to be intended to run up costs and bring pressure to bear on Mr Amstell to withdraw or settle the claim.
‘There was a deliberate intention to run this litigation as disproportionately, obstructively and expensively as possible.’ Widowed Mrs Amstell’s 2009 will named her niece Marion Finn as executor. She left her home in Kenton, North London, to Mr Amstell, with £122,000 in shares and savings going to 22 animal charities. Mrs Finn did not immediately apply for a grant of probate, having mislaid the original will.
Mr Fraser, partner in heir hunting firm Fraser & Fraser, learned of the house in 2016 when asked by Brent Council to find out if anyone was entitled to it.
He obtained power of attorney from a relative he had traced. This gave him the power to be named as administrator in December 2016, despite being told repeatedly from July that there was in fact a will.
A copy of the will was finally found, but Mr Fraser only agreed to remove the house from sale days before it was due to be auctioned, and after Mr Amstell had applied for a court injunction.
He only ‘hoisted the white flag for commercial reasons’ a year later, the judge said.
Representing Mr Amstell at Central London County Court, Dov Ohrenstein said of Mr Fraser: ‘If he is left out of pocket, that is entirely his fault.’ It is understood that there are no criminal charges arising from the case.
Mr Fraser said last night his bill was ‘nowhere near’ £250,000. He also insisted he had acted properly and ‘no-one had done anything with the will in the six years before we became involved’.
‘Hoisted the white flag’