This would be a welcoming sign among many families, but it’s also an unwelcome indication among many other families. It all depends upon how the children get on with the new step-mother.
Leo Abse died in 2008, aged 91. The first point is that he’s regarded as being of sound mind when he updated his will when he last got married because he was writing a detailed book at the time of his death: a biography of Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe.
Leo Abse was also a former Labour member of parliament MP and was married for 40 years to his first wife, Mar¬jorie, an artist. She died in 1996.
When he was 83, he married again, to a lady 50 years his junior, 33 year old Ania Czepulkowska.
The family now has a feud going on, because the testator (the person who died) left almost all of his estate to his second wife and almost nothing to his two children. He left nothing to his grandchildren. The children are obviously worried that everything that was in his father’s estate may now leave the family line.
These types of legal challenges always cause a considerable amount of distress, but it would appear that the testator has left his estate to whom he chose and in the amount he also chose. There wouldn’t appear much that the two children can do about this happening; especially as they can’t afford fees of £200 per hour to fight a legal case.
Probate records show that Leo Abse, MP for Pontypool from 1958 to 1983, and then Torfaen from 1983 to 1987, left £1,164,271.
The will stated that the man’s daughter, who is married to an Italian government official, should receive two of her mother’s framed tapestries. His son was left the two remaining tapestries, plus his father’s pocket watch and a photo of his great-great-grandfather.
Mrs Czepulkowska-Abse could choose 300 books from the house’s library for herself. The son could then receive the rest of the books.
Small legacies totalling £8,500 were left to friends and organisations, including two Welsh male voice choirs.
This shows how important it is to have testators write wills that they are content with and professional will writers have a duty to point out potential problems (like this family dispute) in those decisions; but it is the testator who gets to choose; no-one else, however much that harms the family’s values and ethics.
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