A man has lost a £400,000 legal battle after being disinherited over the “offensive suggestion” that his great-aunt should be admitted to a care home.
Doreen Stock had planned to leave her entire estate to Ben Chiswick, her 39-year-old great-nephew, who was living in the US, under the terms of a will written when he was a baby.
But Stock, who had no children and who was described in court as “stubborn and houseproud”, changed her mind after an argument with Chiswick’s parents, Patricia and Brent, whom she branded “the rats”, over a suggestion that she should go into a care home.
The pensioner cut her great-nephew out of her will in 2020, a year before she died aged 86, leaving everything to another nephew, Simon Stock, and his wife, Catherine, who lived in London.
Stock, a tax adviser, claimed that he was “the nearest thing to a son” his aunt had, noting that he lived close to her and that she had not seen Chiswick for years after he emigrated to America.
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The judge accepted that Chiswick had not spoken to his great-aunt over the telephone or written to the pensioner whereas the Stocks had visited the her and carried out small tasks for her.
However, Chiswick challenged the updated will and at a hearing at Central London county court, he claimed that his great aunt had been a “fixture in his childhood”. He told the court that when she drafted the updated will, she was suffering from dementia.
The estate, which was first left to Chiswick in 1986, mainly consisted of a residential property in Mottingham, southeast London, which was valued at about £400,000.
Doreen Stock’s home in Mottingham, southeast London, formed the majority of the estate in the will
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Judge Jane Evans-Gordon, acknowledged that the great-aunt’s criticisms of the Chiswicks, who had held a power of attorney, were “unfair” because the family had always acted in her interests. However, the judge said that did not mean that the pensioner’s actions were “irrational” and that she did not lack capacity when she disinherited her great nephew.
The judge added that the evidence showed the great-aunt “was distraught to the point of tears about the suggestion that she would go into a care home. She felt very hurt and upset by the suggestion.”
The ruling that the pensioner had the mental capacity to draft an updated will in 2020 means the Stocks will inherit her entire estate.