PT-2024-BRS-000056 - [2025] EWHC 2325 (Ch)

The 1994 will was prepared by a will-writing company called PEP Consultancy Limited. The claimants do not know whether this will was ever executed. The only copy available is, as I have said, unexecuted. That will as drafted by clause 5(c) gave the residue of the testator’s estate in equal shares to Gerald, Russell and the second defendant, who was in an intimate personal relationship with the testator at the time of that will. That subclause contained a substitutionary gift over at the end, in case any of the three predeceased the testator, for a surviving spouse or child who should survive the testator. The claimants say that the instructions given by the testator for that will say that the intended gift for the second defendant was not an equal share with Gerald and Russell. Instead, they say that the instructions show that 85% of the residue should go to Gerald and Russell equally, and only 15% to the second defendant.

The 2009 will was prepared by the respondent, Trust Inheritance Limited, also will writers. It is asserted that this company is related in some way (whether by beneficial ownership, personnel involved, or in some other way) to PEP Consultancy Ltd. The claimants say that the testator’s instructions to Trust Inheritance Limited were given by the testator in a letter of 28 April 2009. This letter, which was handwritten, said as follows (spelling as in original):

“I would like to change my will regarding Janice Mary Piper and familey.

Please remove them from my will. Then will you put, Susan Marie Lythgoe and Nolan Daphinie Gay in there Place. Addresses enclosed.”

However, the 2009 will removed not only the second defendant, but also Gerald and Russell. The claimants say that the respondent misunderstood the testator’s instructions concerning “Janice Mary Piper and familey”. They say that that was a reference to the second defendant and the gift over to any spouse or children of hers. They say that the respondent mistakenly struck out the gifts to his own family, namely his brothers Gerald and Russell and their spouses and issue, and that the testator did not notice that the wrong change had been made.