This article details a legal dispute surrounding the $30 million estate of John Angius. His granddaughter was awarded a portion of the estate based on partial financial dependency, a decision upheld by the NSW Court of Appeal despite an appeal from Angius' daughter.
The case involves complex family dynamics. Angius' separation from his wife after 50 years of marriage led to a family rift, with his children aligning with different parents. His former lover, with whom he lived for the last six months of his life, also played a role, although the court did not recognize a de facto relationship.
The court emphasized that each family provision case is unique, focusing on need and the specific circumstances of the will-maker. The article highlights the increasing number of these cases in the NSW Supreme Court and the difficulty in succeeding in appeals due to the judge's wide discretion in determining the amount awarded.
HWL Ebsworth partner Guy Moloney, an expert in wills and estates litigation, provided insight into the complexities of these cases, emphasizing that outcomes don't rely heavily on precedent but on the specific facts of each case.
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In a decision last year, Justice Mark Richmond found the granddaughter was eligible as she was partly dependent on Angius in her childhood and as an adult. Angius had provided her with “significant financial assistance”, particularly after her medical diagnosis.
Angius separated from his wife in 2010 after more than 50 years of marriage. They had migrated to Australia from Italy in the late 1950s.
His affair, and the couple’s split, caused a wider schism in the family. Their son sided with their mother and was the sole beneficiary of her estate, while their daughter aligned with their father.
De facto partners and those living with a person in a “close personal relationship” at the time of their death are eligible for family provision orders.
The judge said Angius and his former lover lived together in Coogee for about the last six months of his life. She provided “caring and nursing services”.
The judge was not satisfied that they were ever in a de facto relationship. However, he said the woman was in a relationship with Angius for almost 20 years which “went beyond that of a mere carer/housekeeper … including a sexual relationship for at least part of that time”.
After last year’s decision, Angius’ daughter filed an appeal challenging the judge’s finding that her niece was eligible for a family provision order, as well as the amount awarded. She did not challenge the findings about Angius’ former lover.
The NSW Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge in a decision on May 27.
The court found no error in the judge’s finding that the granddaughter was eligible because of her partial financial dependency on Angius, nor any error in the amount awarded.
Even taken in isolation, the financial support he provided after his granddaughter’s diagnosis, “first to supplement her income and then in place of it, would have been sufficient to establish partial dependency”, the court said.
The number of family provision cases filed in the NSW Supreme Court has increased over the past 20 years, from 655 in 2005 to 996 last year.
HWL Ebsworth partner Guy Moloney, an expert in wills and estates litigation, said that “the thing about these cases is the courts treat each of them as unique”.
“It’s not about fairness, it’s about need. The court tries to step into the universe of that particular will-maker and see if … someone has been left out who shouldn’t have been.”
Moloney said family provision cases were “slightly different to other areas of the law in that the cases, and the results from those cases, don’t build up so much a body of precedent as what I call accumulated statistics of cases of similar types”.
“People see an outlandish or a strange result and think that may apply to my case to mean I can get the same or similar thing. However, it’s not quite like that. There might be factors completely unique to the universe of that will-maker.”
It was difficult to succeed in an appeal in these cases because the judge hearing the case had “a very wide discretion in choosing a figure”, although the size of the estate was relevant.
An appeal court could also examine whether a judge had made an error about eligibility, Moloney added. Whether a grandchild was eligible focused on dependency, which involved more than receiving generous gifts from a grandparent over time.
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