The Conservative political party went to court to try to win the money left in the 1980’s will of Branislav Kostic. He died in 2005 and when the will was read he had left the Tories £8.3 million as Margaret Thatcher would save the world from “satanic monsters”.
His only son contested the will claiming his father was deluded and insane when he wrote the will; the son claimed the money.
The Tories hadn’t touched the money just in case. The judge decided that if the testator had been of sound mind he wouldn’t have left the sum to a political party, in this manner.
The judge chose to use Mr Kostic’s 1974 will when it was deemed that he had full capacity and which his son would receive the full value of the estate.
The Tories tried to argue that Mr Kostic had rational reasons behind his 1980’s will. He was a fanatical supporter of Mrs Thatcher and had become estranged from his son. The latter was true, but the testator argued that the Tories only benefited because Mr Kostic was of a delusional mind.
LSUK will only take sensible instructions from clients with capacity. It may well be that the client appeared to be of sound mind when he made the will, but leaving the son out completely left the will open to plenty of contesting factors.
Clients must be of sound mind when making their will otherwise contesting the will becomes a formality.
Mrs Thatcher may have been one of the last century’s greatest leaders and many will also argue that point, but there are few that thought she would save the world from satanic monsters.
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