Judge has final say in battle of £300k wills

A judge had the final word in a bitter family feud over a 95-year-old Oldham man’s £300,000 fortune when he ruled the old man knew what he was doing when he signed his will.

A lifetime of cautious frugality meant devoted family man and long-term widower Walter Cottrill was “comfortably off” when he died in May 2007.

But his passing heralded legal warfare between his daughter-in-law, Helen Cottrill, who lives on Guernsey, and his niece, Christine Hunter Hughes, from Preston, over his final, hand-written, will.

Under an earlier, professionally drawn-up will, he made in 2000, Mr Cottrill left the lion’s share of his estate to Mrs Cottrill — the widow of his son, Gwyn, who died in the 1970s from brain cancer — and her daughters Victoria and Claire.

Mrs Hunter Hughes and her two children were allocated £9,000 under that will but, in the year before he died, Mr Cottrill filled in and signed a shop-bought will form that changed everything and left Mrs Hunter Hughes a share of his estate worth about £150,000.

The result was mutual suspicion and bitter recrimination, with Mrs Hunter Hughes accusing Mrs Cottrill and her daughters of malice. They responded with allegations that she had exerted undue influence over the old man to make a will in her favour.

After a hearing in Leeds last year, Judge Roger Kaye QC, rejected all those accusations and said all the women had been fond of Mr Cottrill and done their best to help him in his declining years.

He said the real problem between the women was a lack of communication and handed victory to Mrs Hunter Hughes when he ruled that, despite his old age and profound deafness, Mr Cottrill “knew precisely what he was doing” when he signed his final will in 2006.

Helen and Victoria Cottrill flew into London from Guernsey on Friday in a bid to convince the Civil Appeal Court that Judge Kaye had reached the wrong decision.

But top judge, Lord Justice Mummery, said that while recognising their disappointment at losing the case, it was time to call a halt to the dispute.

He told Mrs Cottrill and her daughter their appeal stood no real prospect of success.

In his ruling last year, Judge Kaye said family had meant a great deal to Mr Cottrill and he was particularly proud and supportive of his grand-daughters, Victoria and Claire. Even after his deafness made phone calls difficult, he delighted in writing letters to his Guernsey family, who regularly took the six-hour trip to Oldham to visit him and make sure he was properly looked after.

But, after his wife’s death, Mrs Hunter Hughes, of Pool House Lane, Preston, made the 80-mile round trip twice a week to wash, clean and shop for the pensioner, and the judge said his diary made plain how much he valued her help and companionship.

Mr Cottrill was “very frail and vulnerable” at the time and Mrs Hunter Hughes had “organised to some extent” the execution of the 2006 will, but Judge Kaye exonerated her of claims that she had unduly influenced or coerced him into making it.

Mrs Cottrill and her daughters had also done their best for the old man, despite living so far away, but his death was the almost immediate cause of suspicions, recriminations and counter-recriminations between them and Mrs Hunter Hughes.

Mrs Hunter Hughes, who described herself as “no weak and feeble woman”, was “fond of the old man and determined to help him as and when she could”.

The judge observed: “The same spirit of helpfulness is so easily interpreted by others and understood to be a spirit of being a busybody and that, too, may explain something of the antipathy between the two sides.” Judge Kaye also rejected the malice claims against Mrs Cottrill and her daughters.

At the Appeal Court, Victoria Cottrill argued Judge Kaye’s decision flew in the face of the evidence and he should have ruled the 2006 will invalid.

But Lord Justice Mummery told them that if their disappointment and dissatisfaction at losing the case were enough to justify a full hearing of their appeal, there would be no end to litigation.

They were refused permission to appeal against Judge Kaye’s decision and, as a result, the will signed by Mr Cottrill in 2006 stands.