A woman has won the right to have her fiancé’s will amended after a solicitor’s 'clerical error' meant it was not written in contemplation of marriage.

Last will and testament

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Nina Angelova was a beneficiary under the will of Peter John Bryant, who died in December 2020. The will had been drafted by north west firm Gorvins LLP.

A discretionary trust had been created of the testator’s interest in BCT partnership, a structure holding interests in German land.

In the will, it listed as a beneficiary of the BCT trust: ‘My said Wife Nina Angelova provided that we were married at the date of my death.’

Angelova took the executors of Bryant’s estate to the High Court to seek an amendment so the clause listing her as a beneficiary would instead read ‘whether or not we are married at the date of my death’.

The court heard Bryant had prepared a ‘revised plan’ for the beneficiaries which showed he wanted to treat Angelova ’as if married'.

Bryant sent this to the Gorvins solicitor he had instructed at the time, and who prepared the final version of the will, Christine Thornley.

Thornley, who took over drafting of the will on April 17 2020 - after the previous solicitor had become unwell - accepted in a witness statement that the revised drafts she then prepared ‘did not reflect the testator’s instructions as set out in the revised plan’, the High Court heard.

Master Clark, concluding in Angelova’s favour, said: ‘The executors’ counsel conceded that it was beyond doubt that Ms Thornley made a clerical error when she failed to transpose the revised plan into the will. He submitted that this was consequence of Ms Thornley’s “admission” to this effect in her witness statement. 

‘However, in my judgment, the error is plain on the face of the will file, and Ms Thornley’s evidence is only acknowledging this inevitable inference. This error was also conceded by Gorvins to the executors’ solicitors.’

The judge said it appeared Angelova had simply not noticed the inconsistency between his wishes and the final will which was produced, because he ‘would have assumed that Ms Thornley had given effect to his instructions’.

‘His active involvement was such that if he had noticed the deviation from his instructions in the Revised Plan, he would in my judgment have raised this with Ms Thornley’, Master Clark said.

The judge made an order rectifying the will as sought by the claimant.

 

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