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one daughter Her “grumpy” little sister was sued after being left with just £250 at home. dadof will After losing the case in court, he faced a bill of more than £400,000.
Anju Patel inherited almost all of her £600,000 fortune from her father Laxmikant Patel’s will and was left with nothing after being crushed by sister Bhavenetta Stewart-Brown in court.
Laxmikant, who died in October 2021 at the age of 85, left a house worth £600,000 to his eldest daughter Anju in his will, while his younger daughter Bhavenetta Stewart-Brown, 52, and son Piyush Patel, 62, left only £250 each.
Anju, 58, claims her father’s fateful decision to effectively disinherit both of his children may have been driven by his growing distrust of them because “they were just fighting over his fortune”.
But the August 2021 will was eventually attacked at London’s High Court, with Bavenetta claiming a “cloud of suspicion” hung over the way it was drafted and executed – it was made two months before the old man’s death while he was terminally ill, frail and under coronavirus restrictions in hospital.
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In December, deputy dean Jason Raeburn ruled in Bhavenetta’s favour, upholding a 2019 will that roughly divided the £600,000 estate between the siblings, while declaring that the situation in 2021 would be “highly suspicious”.
Now he has ordered that, as well as losing nearly two-thirds of her inheritance, Anju will be responsible for paying court costs for her sister’s fight, leaving her facing a bill that lawyers say could exceed £400,000, as well as her own undisclosed legal costs.
The 2021 executor, Vijaykant Patel, was also held jointly and severally liable for paying Bhavenetta’s expenses.
But the decision means the approximately £250,000 Anju was entitled to under the upheld 2019 will will be completely wiped out from the costs of her case.
The court heard during the trial that Laxmikant’s 2019 will left £50,000 to Anju, with the remainder of the estate divided between 33% to each child and 1% to a charitable trust managed by Anju.
But documents drawn up in 2021 left almost everything to Anju, with her two siblings receiving just £250 each.
During the trial, Anju explained the move, telling judge Laxmikant that he had complained that Baveneta and Piyush had failed to express “genuine affection” to him. When asked to explain why he left anything to them, Anju replied: “They did not fulfill their sense of responsibility, but as a father, I have not forgotten them”.
He is also said to have labeled his son Piyush as “extremely controlling” and complained that Baveneta had a “bad temper” and complained that she had “taken great advantage” of her elderly father.
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The court heard Laxmikant was a gentle and hard-working man who built a new life for his family after emigrating from Uganda in the early 1970s, working shifts at the Ford car factory in Dagenham while his wife Shardaben ran a newsagents.
Laxmikant is a devout religious man who visits the Swaminarayan Temple in Neasden, north London every day. He and his wife have donated about 180,000 pounds to the temple during their lifetime.
At the time of his death in 2021, his main asset was a £600,000 home in Cambridge Road, Harrow.
According to Anju’s will, the house was left entirely to Anju, a decision Bavenetta’s attorney Tim Sherwin called “the strangest.”
He claimed that Anju – a follower of Hare Krishna – had done everything he could to distance her father from his usual Swaminarayan faith, and told the judge: “The evidence… shows that Anju and (her husband) had a clear pattern of isolation and control over the deceased, which became particularly evident when he was in hospital towards the end of his life – and certainly when the will was allegedly made in 2021.”
Bhavenetta’s legal team claims that Laxmikant’s apparent change of heart makes no sense given that in his 2019 and 2018 wills he clearly wanted his estate to be divided primarily equally.
Anju’s lawyer, James Kane, argued that by October 2019, Laxmikant had developed an “extremely negative” view of both Piyush and Bhavenetta, citing his comments to the will-writer in 2019 that Bhavenetta had “taken great advantage of her father” while Anju remained “the only light in his life.”
“Obviously, she had a bad temper,” the will writer said of Bavenetta.
Anju claimed that her father gave instructions to make the will to Vijaykant Patel – whom she met at the Hare Krishna temple and who she claimed was also a friend of her father – who visited him at his bedside in London’s Northwick Hospital and Laxmikant asked him to help prepare the will documents.
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Executor Vijaykant in 2021 claimed that during the hospital meeting, Laxmikant expressed his “disgust” against Bhavenetta and Piyush, before stating that the two were “only after his property” and that “everything goes to Anju”.
The judge found that the 2021 hospital bed will had not been properly witnessed, explaining: “Both witnesses said they used the same pen as the deceased, but it is clear from the face of the will that it was not signed by all parties involved using the same pen.
“I am therefore not satisfied with the fact that (Laxmikant) signed it in the simultaneous presence of all witnesses and therefore the will was not executed as it should have been.”
The judge also found there was no convincing evidence that Laxmikant “knew about and approved” the 2021 will.
“The specifics of the 2021 directive and execution will be questionable – highly questionable,” he commented.
The judge said the 2021 document represented a significant change from the previous equitable will drawn up by Laxmikant, noting: “A particular feature is that it effectively disinherits two of his three children.
“I have come to the clear conclusion that those who produced the 2021 Will have not discharged their burden of proving that he knew and approved of its contents,” he added, before going on to delete the 2021 Will and reinstate Laxmikant’s previous 2019 Will, giving his three children a share of his estate on roughly equal terms.
At a further hearing this week, he ordered Anju and Vijaykant to each share in paying Bhavenetta’s legal costs, which Mr Sherwin said amounted to £380,000, with VAT taking the total bill to more than £450,000 – almost double what Anju received under the 2019 will.
She must also pay her own attorney fees, but her own billing figures were not disclosed during the hearing.
Mr Kane also asked the judge to allow him to appeal his ruling on Anju’s behalf, but was refused.
The judge also ordered costs of around £180,000 to be paid up front plus VAT.