Success in probate dispute in estate of wealthy racehorse owner Reg Bond

After a 15-day trial spread over six weeks, the High Court today overturned the purported 2019 Will of self-made millionaire and racehorse owner Reg Bond, resolving a long-running dispute between his four children about the family fortune.

Family background

Aged 22, in 1966, Reg received £350 compensation for an accident which blinded him in one eye.  He turned that into one of the UK's largest tyre wholesalers, Bond International, based in Pocklington near York, now with an estimated revenue of £400 million.

A brain tumour in 2010, followed by a fall and mini stroke, left Reg in a wheelchair and dependent on round-the-clock care.  

Reg's wife Betty died of cancer in 2015.  Reg and Betty had always intended that their four children, Lindsay, Mike, Greg and Charlie, who all worked in the family business, would inherit equally.  Reg gave Betty's shares to his four children.

When a proposed buyout of the business fell through, Lindsay and Mike negotiated an exit (although they have still not received payment for their shares).  Meanwhile Charlie, with the assistance of solicitor Duncan Rann (who at the time claimed to be New York qualified but it transpires had been suspended since 2009), organised a series of transactions whereby Charlie secretly took control of his father's finances, avoiding Reg's longstanding family solicitor, including a Lasting Power of Attorney removing Lindsay and a new Will in 2019 cutting Lindsay and Mike out by giving Reg's shares in the business to Greg and Charlie.  

The signing of the LPA was recorded and the Judge described the videos as disturbing.

Lindsay and Mike only found out that they had been cut out after their father passed away in 2021.  When they objected, Charlie and Greg issued proceedings against them which led to this trial.

The Judgment

The Judge found that by 2019 Reg lacked the necessary capacity to make a valid will.  

The Judge also found the numerous suspicious circumstances, including elaborate attempts to maintain secrecy, meant that, even if he was wrong about capacity, Charlie and Greg failed to establish that Reg knew and approved the 2019 Will.  

The 2017 Will dividing Reg's estate equally between his four children will now be admitted to probate instead.  The Judge's concluding words urge the family to consider whether prolonging disputes is in their interests.  

The judgment is available here.