WHR and another v WHT and others

LLT emigrated from China to Singapore in 1935, built a wholesale business in luxury watches and died on 13 March 2009 aged 92, leaving a large estate and seven children. His estate went unadministered for years. After two of his children (the 1st and 2nd Defendants) filed caveats in 2014, the 1st Plaintiff, a son, found the key to LLT's safe. On 8 March 2015 the family opened it and found a Will dated 25 March 1999 and a Codicil dated 6 August 2008. The Codicil left LLT's Duchess Road properties to three grandsons and capped the cash legacies at $6,600,000.00, payable only from specified funds, so that legatees would share any shortfall.

The 1st and 2nd Defendants disputed both documents and issued a citation for them to be propounded. The executors, the 1st Plaintiff and a grandson, then brought Suit No 4 of 2019 to prove the Will and Codicil. Three children opposed. They pleaded no positive case and called no evidence, but argued through cross-examination that LLT did not know and approve of the contents and that the Codicil was made in suspicious circumstances, as the 1st Plaintiff had been involved in it and benefited from it.

1. Whether the Will was duly executed and LLT knew and approved of its contents
2. Whether the Codicil was made in suspicious circumstances that displaced the presumption of testamentary capacity
3. Whether LLT had the mental capacity to execute the Codicil in 2008

On the Will, the opposition concerned only the Codicil, and no one alleged incapacity in 1999. LLT, who was illiterate and spoke only Cantonese, found a Cantonese-speaking solicitor, listed his family and gave detailed instructions, and asked for changes on the day of signing. The court accepted that the solicitor's memory of details from over two decades earlier had lapses, but the Will reflected his instructions, and an attesting witness's unchallenged evidence confirmed it had been explained. The presumption of capacity stood unrebutted.

On the Codicil, the court accepted that the 1st Plaintiff's involvement could give rise to suspicion, since excluding unpaid company loans from the fund for cash legacies benefited him as shareholder and director of those companies. The burden was on the executors, but the court found nothing to vitiate the Codicil. The solicitor re-enacted fluently how she explained it in Cantonese, and under Chee Mu Lin Muriel v Chee Ka Lin Caroline reading back a document is affirmative evidence of knowledge and approval.

On capacity, the court accepted the evidence of LLT's regular nurse since 2006 that he was mentally alert, over night-shift notes of memory on and off that were each prefaced by stable and alert. Occasional lapses did not show incapacity, and no expert supported the suggestion that medication caused them. Any ulterior motive in the 1st Plaintiff's delay did not prove that the Codicil was not LLT's own act.

The court allowed the executors' claim and declared that the Will and the Codicil had been validly executed by LLT and were proved in solemn form, ordering each party to bear its own costs.