£10 Million Takeaway

The recent decision by the High Court to uphold the will of an elderly lady who had left the majority of her multi-million pound estate to the owners of her favourite Chinese restaurant in Essex, is a dramatic reminder to all families that blood is not always thicker than water – or in this case pickled leeks.

Golda ‘Goldie’ Bechal lived in Mayfair and owned commercial property worth in excess of £10 million. She was widowed in 1971 and her only child died in 1974. During the next forty years Mrs Bechal came to view Kim Sing Man and Bee Lian Man and their three children as her best friends and Mrs Man as the daughter she never had.

The group went on family holidays, and spent birthdays, Christmas and other special occasions together. Mr Man would visit Mrs Bechal every time he came to London – often bringing with him her favourite dish of pickled leeks and beansprouts – and there were frequent get-togethers, with the Man family helping out Mrs Bechal with odd jobs and support as she grew increasingly frail with age.

When Mrs Bechal died in 2004, leaving the majority of her estate to the Mans, with some charitable gifts, her five disappointed nephews and nieces claimed that Mrs Bechal’s Will was invalid because she did not satisfy the capacity test for making a Will and did not have the necessary knowledge and understanding of its’ contents. They claimed that they should have therefore inherited the estate in its entirety.

Mrs Bechal suffered from both dementia and depression at the time she drafted her two Wills in 1994. She was increasingly forgetful and could behave eccentrically and would at times fail to recognise family members.

In order to make a valid Will, the person making the Will (in this case the Testatrix) must have the necessary mental capacity. The test for capacity to make a Will is in three parts, and each part must be satisfied in order for the Will to be valid. Mrs Bechal needed to understand the following:

• The nature of the Act and its effects; Mrs Bechal did not need to understand the precise legal machinery of a Will but she did need to understand the broad effect of creating a Will.
• The extent of the property of which she was disposing; Mrs Bechal needed to have a broad idea of what it is she was leaving.
• The claims to which she ought to give effect; Mrs Bechal needed to be able to consider who might be appropriate beneficiaries although she did not need to leave any gift to any specific person. It is sufficient that Mrs Bechal knew who might have an expectation under her Will.

The judge found that on the balance of probabilities, Mrs Bechal did have the necessary capacity. Mrs Bechal knew that she making a Will that would dispose of her property on her death. She was mindful of the different people who might expect to inherit something and she had sufficient foresight to warn Mr and Mrs Man that they should expect trouble from her nephews and nieces and "must be strong".

The judge also disagreed with the family’s argument that Mrs Bechal did not fully understand how wealthy she was and that she did not know or understand the actual contents of her Wills which had not been drafted by Mrs Bechal’s lawyers.

Whilst the facts of this case are more unusual because of the amount of money involved, it is becoming increasingly common for challenges to be made to Wills.

Whether this is because people are more willing to litigate family issues, or whether the rise in property prices has increased the number of estates worth fighting over remains unknown.

The starting principle for claims against Wills are that we should all be free to leave our estates however we wish; there are only limited examples where the freedom of the Testatrix should be curbed.

In this case, the strong and enduring relationship between Mrs Bechal and the Man family contrasted sharply with Mrs Bechal’s relationship with her own family who she suspected of only being interested in her money and who she described as ‘hooligans’.

Nevertheless, when an estate of this size excludes all family members, it is perhaps unsurprising that a claim was made. What is interesting is the clear message that just because a Testatrix has dementia, the court will not automatically be persuaded that the Will should be invalid.

With a legal costs bill estimated to be in excess of £450,000, you might consider that the family have had a sobering lesson in the risks of litigation as well as family values.

Published 10/12/2007. The author of this article is Tamara Richardson