A “STUBBORN and fiesty” woman ripped up her £800k will on her death bed.
Carry Keats, 92, left her fuming family with nothing just weeks before she passed – sparking a dramatic court fight between her five cousins and younger sister.
The OAP physically ripped three-quarters of the way through the pages of her will during her final illness in hospital after a “fatal” falling out with the cousins over a care home.
Under a Victorian law passed in 1837 any person can legally revoke a will they have made by ripping it up.
And because Mrs Keats died without a valid will, younger sis Josephine Oakley stood to inherit everything.
But Mrs Keats’ cousins, who would have split most of her fortune under the will, took the matter to court.
David Crew, Angela Crew, Kevin Whitehorn, Jason Whitehorn and Leon Whitehorn claimed the dying pensioner did not validly revoke her will because she was too weak to rip the document all the way through with her own hands.
The rest was torn apart at her request by her solicitor Hafwen Webb when she gave her a “nod”.
They went on to say Mrs Keats had wanted to leave her sister nothing and that she didn’t have the mental capacity on her death bed to change her mind about who landed the fortune.
Mrs Oakley however insisted her sister knew what she was doing and had decided to cut out her cousins after they proposed putting “proud and independent” Mrs Keats into a nursing home.
At London’s High Court on Friday, Deputy Master John Linwood ruled in favour of Mrs Oakley in the landmark case.
He found Mrs Keats had in fact wished to disinherit the cousins and had done so lawfully.
He said: “In my judgement there was actual tearing combined with intent… Carry did sufficiently destroy the will as it was entirely torn in half as she intended.
“I find there was a positive communication and not mere acquiescence, as Carry looked at Mrs Webb and responded to her direct offer with a physical command or instruction reflecting her wish that Mrs Webb should actively assist her to complete the tearing in half of the will.”
Mrs Keats died on 15 February 2022, less than three weeks after tearing up her last will as she lay dying in hospital in Salisbury.
She owned and ran a successful caravan site and left behind an £800,000 fortune, which was mainly tied up in her home and land at “Carron” in the Wiltshire village of Nomansland.
Eighteen months earlier, she had made a will which split almost everything she owned between five distant cousins of hers.
However, towards the end of her life, she grew closer to her younger sister – nine years her junior – with whom the court heard she had a “love-hate relationship”.
Mrs Oakley would take her sister roast dinners every Sunday whilst she was still at home during her last years and visited her in hospital almost every day during her final illness.
During the same period Mrs Keats fell out with her cousins “after they indicated that they were going to put her in a nursing home if she had another fall,” Mrs Oakley’s lawyers told the judge.
These changes in the family dynamics led to the dramatic scene in January 2022 which saw Mrs Keats send for her lawyer as she lay dying.
IF you’re involved in a will dispute, you may have rights.
There are grounds for contesting a will if you fall into certain categories and the circumstances.
The categories are:
Inheritance Act
If you were a close family member or dependant of the deceased, you may be able to claim a reasonable financial provision under the Inheritance Act.
This applies if you were left out of the will, or if the will didn’t leave you enough.
Will validity
You can challenge the validity of the will if you believe it doesn’t reflect the deceased’s intentions, or if you were unfairly excluded.
You can present evidence that the deceased’s actions or statements contradict the will, or that there were suspicious circumstances around its creation.
Undue influence
You can contest the will if you believe someone exerted undue influence on the deceased, forcing them to change their will for their own benefit.
This could include physical violence, verbal bullying, or giving inaccurate information.
