It is the $30 million inheritance that triggered a years-long feud in an already fractured family.
Now, NSW’s highest court has delivered its decision in the legal fight over the fortune of Sydney man John Angius, who died aged 82 in January 2022.
John Angius left his $30 million estate, including a Coogee home, to his daughter.Credit: Sam Mooy
Angius’ will, dated April 2021, named his daughter as his executor and sole beneficiary. His estate had a net value of $29.5 million, including a palatial home in the beachside suburb of Coogee in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
His son, with whom he had a fraught relationship, was cut out of his inheritance.
Angius’ former lover and one of his grandchildren both launched proceedings in the Supreme Court after his death. They sought a share of his estate under NSW succession laws that allow eligible people to seek a “family provision order” if inadequate provision has been made for them in a will.
The court must be satisfied that “adequate provision for the proper maintenance, education or advancement in life of the person” seeking the order was not made in the will.
‘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.’
HWL Ebsworth partner Guy Moloney
Both claims were successful. His former lover received $250,000 and a commercial property, and an adult granddaughter with complex medical needs received $2.5 million from Angius’ estate.
Grandchildren are not automatically eligible for a family provision order, but they are if they were at any time “wholly or partly dependent on the deceased”. Eligibility is just the first hurdle.
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”.
John Angius lived in the Coogee home with his former lover in the final months of his life.Credit: Sam Mooy
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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