Sons challenge deathbed will
A scheming brother, a bogus Justice of the Peace and a phoney will were at the heart of a plot to rob a dead man's sons of their rightful inheritance, a writ lodged yesterday claimed.
The sons, William Tin Ying-sin and Gordon Tin Kwan-sin, claimed in the High Court writ that their father, Kar-pun, was pressured into signing an invalid will while on his deathbed, unable to understand what he was signing.
The writ claimed their father's younger brother and cousin were behind the 'plot'.
Tin Kar-pun was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in critical condition after a heart attack on November 6, 1983. He died 11 days later, leaving behind a will dated a day before his death.
The writ claimed the sons' uncle, Tin Ka-kung, wrote the will while their father's cousin, Tin Ka-ping, acted as a witnessing Justice of the Peace.
The writ claimed the father was just hours away from death and needed an oxygen mask to breathe. Unable to speak, he could only nod at his wife when she came to visit and was unable to think clearly or understand the contents of the document he was signing.
The sons accused their uncle of conspiring with the cousin to cheat them out of their inheritance, an undisclosed sum. They branded the will 'a fraud', claiming the signature bore no resemblance to their father's usual script.
The father's cousin passed himself off as a Justice of the Peace to give himself the power to support the uncle's bid to win probate of the will, the writ alleged.
The ruse succeeded, and probate was granted on March 27, 1987, the writ claimed.
The two sons are seeking a court declaration affirming their father's cousin was a bogus Justice of the Peace, and the probate and will were invalid. They also challenge their uncle's court claim that he drew up the will at their father's request.
