Daughter fails to overturn father’s Will

Published: 02/10/2013

A daughter has been unsuccessful in her bid to overturn her father’s Will which was written just two weeks before his death.

Chloe Brennan, 40, claimed her father, Francois Devillebichot, had been subject to undue influence by his siblings and pressurised into signing the Will which left her just £100,000 of his £630,000-worth estate.

Mrs Brennan had believed she was to be the sole beneficiary of her father’s estate, telling the courts Mr Devillebichot had promised ‘she would have no money worries after he died’. Instead the bulk of his estate went to his three sisters and brother.

In her appeal Mrs Brennan made it clear she did not get on with her aunts and uncle, claiming the family had “refused to accept her as one of their own” as the fact that she had been born out of wedlock conflicted with their traditionalist lifestyle.

As a result she accused them of being “part of a conspiracy to fraudulently propound an invalid Will”.

Despite acknowledging the Will was drafted in the absence of any legal advice and was in fact “encouraged and drawn up by members of the family who stand to benefit under it”, Judge Mark Herbert QC dismissed Mrs Brennan’s accusations of dishonesty, stating she had failed to “undermine the validity of the Will, which had been executed according to law”.

Content correct at time of publication

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