The High Court has ruled that a will made by an elderly woman less than two years before she died was invalid because she lacked testamentary capacity when it was made.
The woman had died in October 2014 at the age of 95. In January 2013 she had made a new will leaving substantial legacies to two long-term friends. One of those friends, a woman who had lived with her and been her principal carer, sought an order propounding the 2013 will as her last will and testament. Her niece, who had stood to benefit under a will she had made in 2006, claimed that the 2013 will was invalid on a number of grounds, including lack of testamentary capacity.
After both the friend’s and the niece’s experts concluded that the woman had lacked capacity when the will was made, the friend applied to discontinue her claim. However, as the 2013 will was, on its face, compliant with the Wills Act 1837 and the niece claimed that it was invalid, it was necessary for the Court to determine the issue of its validity.
The evidence of the niece and her witnesses was that she and the woman had had a long and loving familial relationship. That cast immediate and serious doubt on one of the principal reasons why the woman claimed to have wanted to change her will, namely that she did not really know her niece and nephew, and they had not been there for her and did not share any interests with her. Taking the evidence of the witness statements into account, it could be said with some certainty that the woman had been acting in a way that would arouse suspicions in anyone who knew her as to whether she had capacity.
The experts’ evidence was powerfully persuasive on the issue of capacity. There had been no medical certification of the woman’s capacity at the time the 2013 will was made, and there had been no analysis or reflection on the radical departure from the 2006 will. Her medical history during the period prior to the making of the 2013 will also cast doubt on her capacity.
In all the circumstances, the Court was satisfied that the woman had not had testamentary capacity when she made the 2013 will, and pronounced against it.