Wills are not the sort of document that give rise to much in the way of creativity. The requirements of the Wills Act 1837 dictate how a valid Will can be made, and case report after case report demonstrates all that can go wrong if those rules are not followed.
A recent case has seen a charity succeed in proving that an unusual Will written on the back of a fish box and part of a mince pie box is in fact a valid Will.
Malcolm Chenery died in 2021 leaving a three-bedroom house, money, jewellery from his mother and an extensive collection of ornaments and pottery amounting to approximately £180,000.
Before Malcolm died, he wrote a Will. The first page was written on the back of a frozen fish box and the second page was written on a piece of cardboard from a Mr Kipling mince pie box.
The beneficiary of Malcolm’s estate was the British Diabetic Association (BDA) – a charity close to his heart, as some of his family members were diabetic.
The BDA tried to submit the Will to the Probate Registry but was faced with a challenge as to whether it was a valid Will. The question was whether both pages, written on separate boxes but taken together, be considered a single valid Will?
The second page was properly witnessed and signed by Malcolm’s neighbours but the first page, which outlined the distribution of his estate, could not be linked to the second page.
The BDA argued that the Will met the requirements of valid Will, set out in Section 9 of the Wills Act 1837 (“the Act”). The requirements are:
If Malcolm’s Will was not valid, his estate would pass under the intestacy rules to his family from whom he was estranged. The BDA had the support of some family members, as they recognised Malcolm’s wishes and that diabetes affected the family.
The BDA argued the two pages should be considered as a whole document as they were written with the same pen and contained overlapping subject matter.
Master Katherine McQuail decided that although the two sheets came from different food packaging, they were undeniably part of the same document, created at the same time, and with the same testamentary purpose; stating further “The Deceased had not intended to die intestate. His family was not close, and he did not wish his possessions to go to them,” and “The document is clearly intended to dispose of the Deceased’s belongings, and the witnesses had been told that it was a Will.”
The Will was held to be valid. This case highlights the importance of ensuring a Will complies with the requirements of the Act and difficulties that can be caused when the usual way of making a Will is not observed. Thankfully, in this case, the Court felt able to construe the two boxes as a single document.
Had that not been the case, Mr Chenery’s wishes would not have been followed and the estranged family members would have seen the benefit of his Estate.
If you are unsure whether a deceased’s Will is valid and believe it could be open to challenge, please contact our Contentious Trusts and Probate team for advice.
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