Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info The £800,000 estate of a "stubborn" woman who tore up her will on her deathbed has sparked a feud among her family, who are fighting over her fortune.
Carry Keats, 92, shredded three-quarters of her way through the papers of her will during her final days of illness in hospital . The move created a family drama, pitting her five distant cousins against her younger sister - with whom she had a "love-hate relationship." Under law passed in 1837, any person can legally revoke a will they have made by ripping it up - so long as the act is carried out within certain guidelines.
If Mrs Keats is found to have legally destroyed the document and died without a valid will, her younger sister Josephine Oakley will inherit everything she owned. But the deceased's cousins are now bringing a unique challenge to court as they argue the dying pensioner did not validly revoke it because she was too weak to rip the document all the way through with her own hands. The cousins would split most of her fortune under Ms Keat's will.
The cousins, headed by David Crew, the son of Mrs Keats and Mrs Oakley's cousin Lucy Whitehorn, say the will should stand, as Mrs Keats was only strong enough to tear it three-quarters of the way through, with the rest being ripped at her request by her solicitor . They claim Mrs Keats wanted to leave her sister nothing, having .
