Will: Solicitor accepted will did not reflect instructions
A High Court judge has rectified a will after finding it was “beyond doubt” that the solicitor who drafted it “made a clerical error”.
Master Clark said she “failed to transpose” Peter John Bryant’s revised instructions into the will and, by rectifying it, the woman who was engaged, but not married, to him would be a beneficiary of one of the trusts set up by the will as intended.
The court heard that Nina Angelova met Mr Bryant in 2008 and they became engaged in February 2020, but they did not marry before he died in December that year.
Under the will, Ms Angelova was a beneficiary of a discretionary trust (the ‘BCT trust’) provided they were married at the date of his death.
However, in May 2020, Mr Bryant sent Christine Thornley, his solicitor at Stockport firm Gorvins, a “revised plan for beneficiaries”, which included Ms Angelova inheriting 75% of the BCT money, whether or not they were married. She sought an order rectifying the will to this effect.
The two other named beneficiaries of the trust, who each had two children, disclaimed their interests as beneficiaries.
In her witness statement, Ms Thornley said she had no personal recollection of the matter and was entirely reliant on the Gorvins file.
She accepted that the revised will she drew up after Mr Bryant amended his intentions did not reflect his instructions.
The master said her error was “plain on the face of the will file, and Ms Thornley’s evidence is only acknowledging this inevitable inference”. The error had also been conceded by Gorvins too.
By contrast, Ms Thornley amended Mr Bryant’s letter of wishes to reflect the revised plan.
This said that, while the BCT trust continued to run, any income should be divided between the other two beneficiaries and Ms Angelova, “regardless as to whether or not we are married”.
The letter also said that, when the trust was wound up, she would receive 75% of the remaining capital value “again regardless as to whether or not we are married”.
Master Clark said the “only outstanding issue” was whether the will failed to carry out the testator’s intentions as a result of Ms Thornley’s error.
Counsel for the executors submitted that Mr Bryant was “deeply involved in the detail of the will and concerned to make sure he understood it, by asking questions of Ms Thornley”.
But the evidence, said the judge, showed he “did not fully engage with all the detail of the will”. At the same time, “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”.
Mr Bryant may well have “assumed that Ms Thornley had given effect to his instructions”.
He had “received clear advice” on the importance of the letter of wishes, which was “unequivocal in its terms, and clearly inconsistent with the will”.
If his intentions had changed when he came to execute the will, “he would in my judgment have asked Ms Thornley also to amend” the letter of wishes.
“The fact that he did not do so is very strong evidence that he did not notice that the will did not reflect the revised plan.”
Master Clark made an order rectifying the will as sought by Ms Angelova.
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