The Court granted probate in solemn form of an earlier professionally-prepared will (dated 21 December 2020) where the parties had compromised the proceeding and the defendant withdrew his defence and counterclaim. The Court held that where due execution of the earlier will was established, giving rise to presumptions of testamentary capacity, knowledge and approval, and testamentary intention, and no evidence displaced those presumptions, the will should be pronounced valid. As to later testamentary instruments, the Court confirmed that there is no onus on a party propounding an earlier will to prove invalidity of a later will; rather, where a well-founded suspicion exists that later wills do not express the mind of the deceased, notice has been given to all interested parties, and no one comes forward to propound the later documents, the Court may ignore them. The Court found such suspicion arose from the defendant's substantial benefit under the later wills, his cohabitation with the deceased, the absence of independent legal advice, incomplete gift clauses, and internal inconsistencies in the later documents.
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