Good evening, Mr Bond, I’ve been expecting my inheritance

The case of Bond v Webster [2024] concerns the validity of the final Will of Reginald Bond, which was prepared, along with a codicil, in late 2019.  

Mr Bond had four children: Charlie, Graham, Mike and Lindsay. Under a previous Will, Mr Bond’s estate was to be shared equally between the four children, each of them receiving a 25% share of the estate. 

The final Will and Codicil left Mr Bond’s circa £12.5 million estate to two of his sons, Charlie and Graham; the bulk of this being shares in Mr Bond’s company. Mr Bond’s other children, Mike and Lindsay were left with £325,000 each. Mike and Lindsay’s entitlement under the 2019 Will, being 2.6% each of Mr Bond’s estate, is very far from the 25% they expected to receive under Mr Bond’s previous Will. 

In his judgment, Mr Justice Michael Green was incredibly critical of the actions of the Will writers who failed, at almost every hurdle, to identify the warning signs typically associated with preparing the Will of an aged individual, such as Mr Bond. Mr Justice Green ruled that Charlie and Graham did not sufficiently demonstrate that Mr Bond had testamentary capacity or knew and approved of the contents of his Will; the 2019 Will was, therefore, deemed invalid.   

Despite these, “bitter disputes between the siblings [that] have engulfed the Bond family,” one silver lining is that there are many lessons that testators can take from this case about how to not make a Will.  

Lesson one: testamentary capacity

To have capacity does not mean you have testamentary capacity. 

Testamentary capacity relates to one’s capacity to execute a valid Will. There are four ‘limbs’ to testamentary capacity, as per Banks v Goodfellow [1870]. All four ‘limbs’ need to be satisfied before one can be deemed to have testamentary capacity.  

The crux of Mike and Lindsay’s argument was that their father lacked the requisite testamentary capacity to make the 2019 Will. In response, Charlie and Graham produced a letter from Mr Bond’s doctor, Dr Khan, from 3 October 2019, a month and a half before the 2019 Will was signed. In this letter Dr Khan states: “As things stand Mr Bond is fit and well for all purposes including running his business and making decisions.” That is it then, case closed? Well, that would be so if capacity were viewed as ‘one-capacity-fits-all’, but that is not the case. Just because Mr Bond was deemed to have capacity to run his business and make decisions relating to it, does not mean that he had capacity to make the 2019 Will. Mr Bond was not assessed by Dr Khan for testamentary capacity and the Banks v Goodfellow test was not followed. Mr Justice Green, therefore, did not assign any weight to Dr Khan’s letter. 

For a deeper dive into testamentary capacity and the four ‘limbs’ of Banks v Goodfellow, please see our article entitled, ‘Challenging a Will based on lack of capacity: a guide to testamentary capacity’. 

Lesson two: giving instructions 

Make sure to give instructions yourself. 

It is very important that instructions come directly from the testator rather than from third parties. If instructions come from someone other than the testator, those wishing to challenge a Will are afforded innumerable avenues to do so. For example, one would ask what the reason is that the instructions came from a third party: did the testator lack capacity? Was the testator being unduly influenced? Are these instructions even the testator’s real wishes? Did the testator know and approve of the contents of the Will?  

In this case, the Will writers received most of their instructions from third parties rather than from Mr Bond directly. Mr Justice Green was very critical of this, noting that: “she does not seem to have even attempted to take instructions directly from Reg,” “[she] was always receiving what were said to be Reg’s instructions but from someone else,” and “it feels as though nothing was actually coming from Reg direct.” In fact, Mr Justice Green found that, on the balance of probabilities, it was Mr Rann, a solicitor and close contact of Charlie and Graham’s, who gave the Will writers the instructions in relation to how the shares in the company were to be left.  

As with any asset of the estate, the Will writers should have taken instructions from Mr Bond directly and by not doing so, allowed Mr Bond’s true wishes to be questioned.  

Lesson three: previous Wills 

Record reasons for any drastic changes. 

You are, of course, allowed to change your Will. However, if there are differences between several Wills that you have made, questions may be asked as to why certain changes have been made. Mr Bond’s 2019 Will presented a massive departure from any of his previous Wills. In Mr Bond’s three previous Wills, each sought to divide his estate equally between his four children; that was their defining feature.   

The reason for this change was stated to be because Mr Bond apparently made it clear that as Mike and Lindsay were being bought out of the company, he didn’t want to leave them his shares which would bring them back into the company. There is, however, no record of Mr Bond having said this, no evidence that he was content with this, no evidence that he knew how much Mike and Lindsay stood to get out of this sale, and no evidence that the Will writers questioned him on this point. The reasons for a departure as great as this needed to be explored in greater detail. 

Lesson four: secrecy 

Keep an open dialogue with your family. 

You are under no obligation to share the details of your Will with your family. However, being open with them as to its contents can prevent future disputes. In this case, the Will was prepared with a great deal of secrecy. The Will writers were told not to post any correspondence to Mr Bond so as to, as Mr Justice Green puts it, “ensure that the other side of the family who were losing out never found out that this was going on.”  

Conclusion

Most law firms have learnt all of these lessons, either through personal experience or from hearing about cases such as Bond v Webster. To reduce the likelihood of a claim being brought against your estate, seeing a professional, experienced Will writer is critical. Our expert Private Client Advisory Team can assist you to ensure that your estate passes in accordance with your wishes.  

If, however, you believe that any of these lessons have not been considered in the preparation of a loved one’s Will, please contact our Private Wealth Disputes Team. 

This article was written by Ben Green, Solicitor. For any enquiries, please contact a member of our team on 01473 406386 or at disputeawill@birketts.co.uk.