Hallani v Hallani [2013] NSWSC 91 A grieving widow appoints her brother-in-law to be her attorney, to authorise him to deal with the administration her late husband’s estate. Using that power, the brother-in-law transfers estate money to Lebanon into the control of his father and away from the rightful beneficiary, the widow. Now the brother-in-law says he can’t get the money back. The widow initiates proceedings against him to hold him personally liable. Can he be liable even though he...

Jedrzejewska v Sheedy [2023] VSC 511 An executor’s job is to administer a deceased’s person’s estate, including paying the deceased’s debts and distributing the inheritance to the beneficiaries. But what happens if the executor says he’s going to do it… but never does? In this case, the appointed executor published an intention to deal with the estate but then delayed, delayed, delayed. The primary beneficiary had to apply to the Victorian Supreme Court for the executor to be replaced,...

On 16 April 2017, Peter Dansie took his then 67-year-old wife Helen out of her nursing home and drove her to Veale Gardens in Adelaide where there are several rock pools. At 6.26pm he called emergency services, stating that Helen's wheelchair had fallen into a pond and she had drowned. He was later charged with his wife's murder. The evidence in this case was largely circumstantial. Was it an accident or was it carefully planned by Peter to free himself from a wife he no longer wanted?

Small v Phillips [2019] NSWSC 222 Ready for part 2? In the last episode we covered the initial judgment in which Anthony Small applied for a statutory Will to be made for his incapacitated grandmother, the very wealthy Millie Phillips. The statutory Will would see him receive a large portion of his grandmother's estate on her death. His application was denied. In this episode we move onto the appeal. Did Anthony fare any better?

Re MP’s Statutory Will [2019] NSWSC 331 Millie Phillips was once known as the richest woman in Australia. But by 2019 she was incapacitated, and it looked like she was going to die without a Will. Her entire estate of about $110million would go to her two children and not as she would have wanted. What was to be done? Her grandson applied to the Supreme Court to make a Will for her, a "Statutory Will".

Eva Joy Ambrus v Lee Ellen Buchanan [2022] NSWSC 1628 Two people own a block of land. One wants to sell, one doesn't. What's to be done? The co-owner who wants to sell can apply to the Court under section 66G of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) for trustees to be appointed who will then sell the property and divide the proceeds. But what happens if there are 12 co-owners and the one who wants to sell only owns a 1/56th share? That is what happened with Derrilin, a large 120 hectare...

CASE: Smith v Tamworth City Council and Ors [1997] NSWSC 197 This sad case involved a dispute over a grave site and ownership/control of the deceased's remains. On one side of the dispute is the biological parents and on the adoptive parents on the other.

CASE: Brown v Brown [2022] NSWSC 1393 John was stepfather to David from the time David was 10 years old until he separated from David's mother when David was 23 years old. They still had contact with each other, but it dwindled and by the time of John's death he had not seen or spoken to David in 15 years. John left nothing to David in his Will and David made an application for provision. The question was: Did John have a moral duty to provide for his former stepson?

Aniela executed a Power of Attorney in March 2004 that appointed her son and grandson. She did a new Power of Attorney in 2006, this time appointing two grandchildren. Only 6 months later, in September 2006 she did her final Power of Attorney appointing her daughter Barbara. Barbara then used that Power of Attorney to take control of the family business. The grandchildren were quick to challenge the last Power of Attorney, claiming that Aniela did not have capacity to make it and that...

KOI [2011] TASGAB 7 An attorney - the person you appoint to manage your finances if you ever become incapable of doing it yourself - has a lot of power. Maybe that's why they call it "Power of Attorney"... In this case $175,000 was being held in trust for the benefit of an 81 year old man who didn't have much use for it. His son was his attorney and wanted to give the money to himself and his siblings. The son didn't know if he was authorised to do this as the attorney. So he sought the...

Case: Bovaird V Frost [2009] NSWSC 337 Monica and Max are siblings. In 1948, their father Walter died and Max was the executor of the estate. It was only in 2001 that Monica's son Leon discovered that Max had not given Monica her share of the estate. They reached a "gentleman's agreement" that Max would pay for his sister's accommodation and care for the rest of her life and that Max would provide a 10-year interest free loan up to $880,000 for the development and subdivision of Monica's...

Case: Ballam v Ferro (No 2) [2022] NSWSC 1358 10; Ballam v Ferro [2022] NSWSC 1200 One morning in 2012, Rosario Maiorana executed his final will before a priest and a professor in Sicily. He left most of his estate to his surviving daughters Carmelina and Daniela. After Rosario’s death in June 2020, three of his grandchildren launched legal proceedings against the estate. Firstly, they claimed that the Will was executed in suspicious circumstances and that their grandfather did not have...

In the Estate of Milind Bedake [2015] ACTSC 267 Generally, the laws which you must abide by, or which dictate your affairs are the laws of the place where you live, your domicile. There is a presumption that everyone has a domicile and (generalising even further), unless you are a child, it will be the domicile of your choice. But there are situations where a person’s location may change without it being their choice, and this case is an example of that. Milind Bedake was living in ACT...

CASE: Scott v Scott [2021] NSWSC 1619; Scott v Scott [2022] NSWCA 182; Scott v Scott (No 2) [2022] NSWSC 914 Coral Scott executed a new Will two months before her unexpected death. In that Will she made a small provision for two of her children Coralynne and Clifton, but left most of her estate to her daughter Charlene. What had Coralynne and Clifton done to lose their mother's favour? Or was it a question of what Charlene had said they did? THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE.

CASE: PGB [2014] NSWCATGD 32 Two daughters discover that their 92 year old mother has had her house sold out from under her, is on the verge of being evicted and has had her home care services cancelled due to non-payment. The person who should have been managing the mother's finances - her son and appointed attorney - was behind it all. The first step? To remove the son's powers so that he could no longer control the mother's finances. THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

CASE: Liu v R [2023] NSWSSA 30 How should elderly offenders be punished by the criminal justice system? Should old age result in a shorter imprisonment sentence? Those are the questions that were considered in this case. Zhiyun Liu was 81 years old when he assaulted his wife and attempted to kill her. He pleaded guilty to causing grevious bodily harm with intent to murder and was sentenced to a maximum penalty of 25 years and a standard non-parole period of 10 years. He appealed against...

When a romantic relationship ends, the parties may need to divide their property and assets. The Family Court has jurisdiction to make property orders where there has been a breakdown of a marriage or de facto relationship.  If you are married, you show the Court the marriage certificate. But what do you need to show to prove a de facto relationship? The case of Swinbank v Stein [2022] FedCFamC1F 682 involved one party (Mr Swinbank) claiming that he had been in a de facto...

CASE: The application of Jill May Morison; In the matter of Neil Walter Morison [2022] NSWSC 1758 In 1972, Neil Walter Morison went missing at the young age of 24 years. There was no reason for his disappearance, and he was never seen or heard from again. 50 years later, in 2022, Neil’s sister Jill applied for the Supreme Court of NSW to make a presumption of death ruling and to authorise her to deal with her brother’s $53,000 estate. If a person disappears leaving no trace, when can...

In this episode we are not so much covering a criminal trial as we are covering multiple judgments made in relation to the jury that was sitting on a criminal trial. How many jury members can be dismissed from a jury panel before it is ruled to be a mistrial? The criminal case of R v Cranston started with 15 jurors, but as the case was drawn out for many months, jurors began dropping like flies until finally... there was only 10 left. Why were jury members discharged? For having Covid,...

CASE: Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of NSW v Whit [2023] NSWSC 264 Executors of deceased estates have various duties and obligations. Among them, the obligation to represent the estate and maintain records and estate accounts. In this case, executor Ronald Whit was ordered by the Court to provide records of the estate assets and what he had done with them. He failed to comply with those orders and for over a year did not participate in Court proceedings. It would take a bench warrant...

CASE: Decision of the Financial Planning Association of Australia, Conduct Review Commission CRC_FY-19-20_16 This case was recommended to me by the most awesome Michael Miller. Financial Planner at Capital Advisory in Canberra. This is a matter before the Financial Planning Association (FPA) looking at the conduct of one of its members – financial planner Mrs Pandya. Mrs Pandya worked as a financial planner for several years and one of her clients was in his mid-80s and living in an aged...

CASE: McFarland v Gertos [2018] NSWSC 1629 GUEST: Christa Chapman, Property Lawyer at Roberts Crosbie Mortensen In 1998 Mr Gertos was visitng a client who lived on Malleny Street in Ashbury. As he was in the neighbourhood he noticed the house at number 6 appeared to be unoccupied and was falling into disrepair. When no owner could be found, he laid claim to it: he did some renovations, changed the locks and rented it out. In 2017 Mr Gertos applied to be registered as the legal owner of...

CASE: In the Estate of the late Anthony Marras [2014] NSWSC 915 Anthony Marras died on 14 September 2011. He died without having ever done a Will, which meant that his estate would be distributed according to the rules of intestacy. According to those rules, the majority of his estate would go to his surviving spouse. But depending on how you looked at it, Anthony had 2 wives... or none... or just one. Anthony was married to Maria from 1958 to 1980, at which stage they divided their assets...

CASE: LE and LF v Public Guardian [2009] NSWADT 78 WARNING: This case covers the topic of advance care planning and end-of-life treatment, and may not be suitable for all listeners. Perhaps one of the hardest decisions to make could be whether or not to terminate life support in the knowledge that it will result in a person's death. People will generally have an idea of whether or not THEY would like to be kept alive on life support, but how do you make the decision for another...

CASE: Estate Pamplin; Irwin v Pamplin [2017] NSWSC 1477 A de facto spouse is where you are living together as a couple but not married.  But what happens when a de facto spouse dies without a Will? and the big question that follows on from that is “how do you prove that you are a de facto spouse?”. The case we are looking at today involves a man who dies without a Will. A woman who claims to be his de facto spouse and therefore entitled to his estate, and his mother who denies that the de...