![\"Hordern,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/6cf12a1c1c757c532f277c9d41bf59a54c61b84d.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nNormal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size<\/p>\n
He was born into a storied Australian family famed for its entrepreneurialism \u2013 and for fierce intrafamilial fighting.<\/p>\n
A legal feud over the multimillion-dollar estate of a member of the Hordern retailing dynasty is playing out in the Supreme Court in Sydney, decades after the last of the family\u2019s shops were shuttered in NSW.<\/p>\n
The case is one of a rising number of disputes over inheritances, and it highlights some of the common threads in wills and estates litigation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hordern, shown here at the laying of the foundation stone for Town Hall House, served on the City of Sydney council from 1969 to 1974.Credit: Fairfax Media<\/p>\n
Samuel Carr Hordern, a former stockbroker and City of Sydney alderman \u2013 a councillor, in the modern parlance \u2013 died in 2023, aged 94.<\/p>\n
Under a will dated June 2017, he left the bulk of his estate, worth at least $10 million, to his second wife. He left his four children, including two stepchildren, $250,000 each.<\/p>\n
His daughter Dinah launched proceedings last year against her stepmother in a bid to secure a greater share of the estate.<\/p>\n
\u201cDinah informed me that she seeks an order for provision from the estate for approximately $7 million,\u201d Justice Francois Kunc said in a preliminary decision in May.<\/p>\n
Those proceedings are at an early stage<\/a>, and orders made by the court last month suggest Dinah may re-work her claim and launch fresh proceedings to challenge the validity of the will. Meanwhile, Hordern\u2019s son Matthew has launched a separate case.<\/p>\n Latest in Hordern family disputes<\/p>\n The cases are the latest in a series of Hordern disputes. Historically, separate family businesses competed against each other in Sydney.<\/p>\n Samuel Carr Hordern\u2019s great-great-grandparents, English migrants Anthony and Ann Hordern, arrived in Sydney in the 1820s. Ann\u2019s drapery business in Pitt and later King Street was the beginning of the retail empire.<\/p>\n The former Anthony Hordern and Sons building on the site of what is now World Square. This was run by a separate arm of the Hordern dynasty to Samuel Carr Hordern\u2019s side of the family.Credit: Alan Gilbert Purcell\/Fairfax Media<\/p>\n Their son Anthony II laid the groundwork for what became the sprawling Sydney department store Anthony Hordern & Sons, occupying the site of what is now World Square.<\/p>\n For decades this was a separate business to Hordern Brothers in Pitt Street, around what is now the MidCity shopping centre. Hordern Brothers was run by Samuel Carr Hordern\u2019s side of the family.<\/p>\n Cutting the inheritance pie<\/p>\n Dinah Hordern\u2019s claim started as an application for a family provision order<\/a>. This is a way for those closest to a deceased, including current or former dependants, to seek a larger slice of the inheritance pie if inadequate provision was made for them in a will.<\/p>\n The number of family provision cases filed in the NSW Supreme Court has increased over the past 20 years, from 655 in 2005 to 996 last year.<\/p>\n But the claims are not a modern phenomenon.<\/p>\n \u201c[It] had its origins in the Roman Empire,\u201d said HWL Ebsworth partner Guy Moloney, an expert in wills and estates litigation. \u201cThey had laws like this in Rome, and then they were revived, first in New Zealand … in the late 19th century, and then Victoria, and soon every state and territory in Australia [followed].\u201d<\/p>\n Moloney said the policy objective was to ensure that if a deceased estate had resources to support a person in need who had a moral claim to a share of it, provision was made for them to \u201cease the burden\u201d on state resources. It was \u201csocial legislation\u201d focused on need, not fairness, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that it can override a person\u2019s will is what creates consternation,\u201d Moloney said. But he believed the laws generally achieved their objective.<\/p>\n Speaking hypothetically, Moloney said an estranged child who had been troublesome to a parent and had been cut out of their will might, \u201cperversely, be the person who is in the greatest need\u201d when their parent died.<\/p>\n He said part of his job was to advise clients drafting a will that \u201cif you give this problem child nothing, that might incite a claim\u201d for a family provision order. \u201cThe wise advice \u2026 might be to leave them something, if they can, [as] a deterrent amount,\u201d Moloney said.<\/p>\n Turnbull Hill Lawyers partner Adrian Corbould, a specialist in wills and estates law, said family provision claims were \u201cnot a free-for-all\u201d.<\/p>\n The categories of people who are eligible to seek a family provision order are relatively confined, such as a current or former spouse, de facto partners and children. The court must be satisfied adequate provision hasn\u2019t been made for them on a needs basis.<\/p>\n Grandchildren or others who lived with the deceased may be eligible if they can demonstrate they were \u201cwholly or partly dependent\u201d on them at some point.<\/p>\n A person who is neither a spouse nor partner but is living with the deceased in a close personal relationship, sharing a household and providing care, is also eligible. But eligibility is just the first hurdle before an order can be made.<\/p>\n Corbould said the categories of eligible people reflected the \u201cinnate public feeling that you should, where circumstances warrant and permit, provide for your spouse and children [and other dependants] on your death\u201d.<\/p>\n Lovers of a married deceased may emerge to seek a share. In a current case<\/a>, a former football boss who lived what a NSW judge described as a \u201ccolourful but \u2018hard living\u2019 life\u201d made a will shortly before his death leaving his entire million-dollar estate to his wife of 28 years. His lover in Greece wants the court<\/a> to make an order giving her a slice of the estate.<\/p>\n The experts made clear the cases were about need. A financially secure person would have difficulty persuading a court they needed a family provision order.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to prove \u2018why do I need it\u2019, not \u2018why do I want it\u2019,\u201d Corbould said. \u201cThey\u2019re the kinds of claims that settle for low tens of thousands, just to make them go away.\u201d<\/p>\n Corbould noted the vast majority of wills were not contested, meaning a person was free to divide their assets as they wished and there was a \u201cvery, very good chance\u201d it would not be challenged.<\/p>\n Rise in cases<\/p>\n While some of the increase in family provision claims may be attributable to population increases, Moloney and Corbould believe there are other factors at play.<\/p>\n Moloney said the generational wealth gap was growing, and it was getting \u201charder and harder for young people to do things like enter the housing market\u201d.<\/p>\n Corbould believed the variety of cases would only become more \u201cweird and wonderful\u201d as multiple relationships, including second or third marriages, became more common.<\/p>\n \u201cLife is just getting so financially hard,\u201d Corbould said. \u201cEarnings have not changed much.\u201d Estates were also worth more as the value of even humble family homes increased markedly.<\/p>\n No will? There\u2019s a way<\/p>\n Amid the tussles over wills, it is easy to forget it is not compulsory to make a will. \u201cYou do not have to make a will,\u201d Corbould said. \u201cThe government has laws in place to divide your assets.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the \u201cimaginary will\u201d imposed by those laws, the deceased\u2019s entire estate would go to their current spouse if they had no children, or if they only had children with that spouse.<\/p>\n If the deceased had children from other relationships, their spouse would receive a basic share called a statutory entitlement \u2013 now more than $590,000 in NSW, but the figure is adjusted for inflation \u2013 and any remainder would be divided between the spouse and the children. Other relatives were in line if there was no spouse or children.<\/p>\n Tales of love and grief<\/p>\n Every will tells a story, often about love, but also about grief and pain. These are some of the cases before the NSW Supreme Court this year.<\/p>\n Administration of one estate was \u201criven by bitter conflict for 33 years\u201d, a judge said. At one point, two siblings took out AVOs against each other.One will included a clause directing that $2000 a month be given to the guardian of the deceased\u2019s much-loved dog. Ultimately, the dog died before his doting owner.Another will directed that a woman be cremated with her teddy bear.A man died without a will. DNA testing confirmed he had fathered a child before his death. The court ordered that the child\u2019s name appear on his headstone instead of \u201cadored cousin and friend\u201d.<\/p>\n Family provision claims can still be made where there is no will<\/a>.<\/p>\n Moloney cautioned against leaving no will because it \u201crisks an outcome you don\u2019t want\u201d. It was likely to lead to delays and costs, including in determining who should be the administrator. \u201cA key thing a will does is appoint an executor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Costs concerns<\/p>\n A major concern for parties in inheritance disputes is legal costs. In 2008, the then NSW attorney-general John Hatzistergos said there were \u201cnumerous instances of cost blowouts in family provision proceedings\u201d.<\/p>\n One tool at the NSW Supreme Court\u2019s disposal to rein in costs is its power<\/a> to cap the legal costs recoverable by one party from another in the litigation, as well as the legal costs an executor can recover from the estate.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/f24c97f1399068562dca462d8048047f55d836a8.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n