Henrietta Ingram & Anor v Simon Timothy Abraham & Anor

Knowledge and approval of a will is determined by a single question: whether the testator understood what the will contained when signing it and what its effect would be. The court must consider all relevant evidence and draw appropriate inferences from its totality. Proper execution, reading and signature may carry substantial weight, but they are not conclusive.

Where circumstances excite suspicion, the will’s proponent must provide sufficient evidence to discharge the burden of proving knowledge and approval. Relevant circumstances may include a beneficiary’s involvement in preparation, absence of legal advice, a radical departure from previous testamentary intentions, vulnerability, drafting anomalies and inadequate or inconsistent evidence. The issue is whether the document represents the testator’s true testamentary intentions, not whether its dispositions are desirable or fair.

The claimants challenged the validity of their mother Jo Abraham’s 2019 Will. Her earlier 2008 Will divided her estate equally between them. The 2019 Will left the residue almost entirely to her brother Simon, with a specific gift of books to Hilary Abraham.

The claim initially challenged testamentary capacity, but that issue was abandoned. The sole issue at trial was whether Jo knew and approved the contents and effect of the 2019 Will when she signed it. The claimants relied on the circumstances of preparation and execution, the marked departure from Jo’s longstanding intentions, drafting errors, differing initials and evidence of her continuing intention to benefit them.

1. Claim allowed. The court refused to admit the 2019 Will to probate in solemn form and directed that the 2008 Will be admitted to probate, subject to the final form of order being agreed.
2. The applicable test, derived principally from Gill v Woodall [2011] Ch 380, was a single issue: whether Jo understood what was in the 2019 Will when she signed it and what its effect would be. The burden rested on those propounding the will. The court had to assess all relevant evidence objectively and draw inferences from the totality of the material. There were no presumptions which made signature or execution conclusive.
3. The circumstances sufficiently excited the court’s suspicion. Simon had prepared the will himself, was its principal beneficiary, took instructions orally, did not involve a solicitor, and gave inconsistent evidence about the instructions, draft, reading, execution and destruction of the earlier will. The will contained repeated spelling errors and initials which Jo had not written. Relevant phones and other documents had not been disclosed, and adverse inferences were justified.
4. The court found that Jo’s longstanding intention was to benefit her children, with adjustments for lifetime gifts. That intention remained clear on 18 July 2019, shortly before the 2019 Will was prepared. The evidence relied on to explain a sudden change of intention was rejected as an ex post facto construction.
5. Jo trusted Simon and intended him to administer her wishes for the children. She misunderstood the distinction between a power of attorney, an executor and the operative effect of the residuary clause. She did not understand that clause 9 gave Simon the estate for his own purposes. Accordingly, Simon and Hilary failed to prove both knowledge of the contents and, more emphatically, knowledge of the Will’s effect.

First-instance decision. The judgment states that the 2008 Will was to be admitted to probate and that the 2019 Will was refused probate in solemn form.