Where there’s a will … there’s a $40m waterfront windfall

A Sydney couple will inherit waterfront property after a court agreed their elderly neighbour would’ve wanted them to have it.

68 Louisa Road, Birch Grove.

A Sydney couple will inherit waterfront property worth at least $15m and possibly as much as $40m after a court agreed that their elderly neighbour, who died in 2015, would have wanted them to have it, after they agreed not to renovate their own home in a way that would have obstructed her Sydney Harbour view.

The late Barbara Murphy, 83, apparently adored the view from her little unit at 68 Louisa Road, Birchgrove, which is a long, thin finger of prime real estate on the harbour with views of the bridge, the water and several islands.

The NSW Supreme Court, in hearing a dispute over her estate, heard that she had asked her neighbours at No 70, named in court documents as David Moore and his partner, Dee Andreasen, not to put on an extension that would traduce the water view.

She also told them she didn’t want to leave her unit as she got older, and dreaded going into a nursing home.

They told the court that she had promised to leave them her whole estate, including two properties worth $9m when she died (and almost twice that now), if they agreed not to extend out the back; and to do what they could to ensure that she never went into care.

They said they were shocked, when her will was read, to find that she had left them just $25,000.

The court heard that Mr Moore and his partner had purchased their property at 70 Louisa Road — described in court as “the worst house in the best street” — in 1999, intending to renovate, for profit. But they said they changed their mind when Mrs Murphy, who owned No 66 and No 68, told them how unhappy she would be to lose her view.

Chief Judge in Equity of the NSW Supreme Court, Julie Ward, agreed that all three properties “extend down to Sydney Harbour” and have a “generally perceived advantage, at least in the context of the real estate market”, of having Sydney Harbour views.

Mr Moore told the court that Mrs Murphy also told him: “You and Dee have been so good to me … I want you and Dee to help me to stay living here. Will you help me to do that as I get older? I will see to it that in my will everything goes to you and Dee when I am gone.”

In reply, he said: “We promise to make sure you are OK and that you are looked after as you get older. We are sure that we can figure out a way that we can renovate without building out your view. Then if you leave everything to us in your will, we are very happy with that.”

In 2014, he took Mrs Murphy to see her solicitor to make a new will. But the court heard that Mrs Murphy did not include him, preparing a will that instead gave the entire estate “ to my brother and my sister equally”.

An birdseye view of Birchgrove’s harbout front.

If they predeceased her, the money would go to two Sydney hospitals.

She later added a codicil, to give Mr Moore $25,000.

After she died, Mr Moore complained to her lawyer: “I am very unhappy about Barbara’s will and codicil. I can’t understand how Barbara can have left me $25,000 which is one quarter of one per cent of her estate … we were expecting her to leave her whole ­estate to us.” He duly went on a road trip to see her brother and sister, both of who were then in their 80s and living, respectively, in Tweed Heads and Ballina, hoping they would agree to what he called a “redistribution” of the will which would give him “the lot”.

They declined to give up what they’d been left.

Chief Judge Ward was not surprised, saying this was “to my mind surprisingly optimistic”.

The court heard Mr Moore and his partner took court action because “they performed their side of the agreement”.

Chief Judge Ward said she was “cautious of accepting … a vast deal of self-serving evidence from Mr Moore … I do not suggest that he was lying in the witness box nor that he tailored his evidence, but I think it is obvious that he (is) presenting his case in the most favourable light,” she said.

However, the court also heard that Mrs Murphy’s sister had herself been surprised to find that she had inherited so much property, since Mrs Murphy had told her that the real estate would go to the neighbours. And her brother ­admitted that he’d expressed no interest in the property, having no real idea what it was worth.

Mrs Murphy’s two siblings and her lawyer have all died during the course of the litigation.

The beneficiaries, if not the neighbours, would have been the two Sydney hospitals.

The transfer will go through at the end of the month.