A long-standing business partnership and close social friendship, even spanning decades and involving shared family occasions, does not of itself establish the rare and exceptional non-family relationship required to give rise to a responsibility to make provision under Part IV of the Administration and Probate Act 1958 (Vic). Lifetime dispositions by the deceased that preserved the business for the applicants' family weigh against finding an unfulfilled responsibility. Alleged oral promises of testamentary provision by a deceased person must be assessed with great caution, particularly where the deceased's known wills are inconsistent with the alleged promises.
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