A woman allegedly labelled ‘bad-tempered’ by her late father is suing her elder sister after she and her brother were left just £250 in his £600,000 will whilst her other sibling was handed almost everything else.
Laxmikant Patel handed the £600,000 family home in Harrow, north-west London, to eldest daughter, Anju Patel, 58, labelled the ‘light of her father’s life’.
Younger daughter Bhavenetta Stewart-Brown, 52, and son Piyush Patel, 62, were given the meagre sum because, Anju claimed, their father felt they had ‘failed in their sense of duty’ as his children.
He gave them the token sum because ‘as a father, I have not forgotten them’, she claimed – sparking a fierce legal challenge from Mrs Stewart-Brown.
She claims that her father did not ‘know and approve’ of his will’s contents, finding it ‘odd’ that it was written in English, which he allegedly could not read properly.
She is seeking to uphold an earlier will splitting the £600,000 estate almost equally between the three, but Anju insists her father had every reason to cut out her siblings.
The High Court was told that Piyush Patel had been, in his father’s eyes, a ‘hugely controlling figure’ who had declined to scatter his dead mum’s ashes in India.
Laxmikant also claimed Mrs Stewart-Brown – an inspector with the Care Quality Commission – ‘apparently has a bad temper’ and ‘has taken massive advantage of her father’.
Bhavenetta Stewart-Brown outside the High Court. She is fighting for a greater share of her late father’s estate after being given just £250
Elder sister Anju Patel, who claims that her father shunned her siblings because they had failed him as children
Judge Deputy Master Jason Raeburn heard Laxmikant Patel was a gentle and hard-working character who had carved out a new life for his family after migrating from Uganda in the early 1970s.
He worked shifts at the Ford motor plant in Dagenham while his wife, Shardaben, ran a newsagent’s.
A devoutly religious man, Laxmikant attended the Swaminarayan temple in Neasden, north London, every day and he and his wife donated around £180,000 to the temple throughout their lives before his death at the age of 85 in October 2021.
In his previous will of October 2019 he had split his estate equally save for an extra £50,000 bequest to Anju to balance out similar amounts he had previously handed to his other two children.
But Mrs Stewart-Brown’s barrister, Timothy Sherwin, highlighted the allegedly ‘odd’ circumstances in which Laxmikant made his last August 2021 will, soon after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
He said Anju claimed that her dad gave instructions for his will to Vijaykant Patel, an associate of hers from their Hare Krishna temple.
Vijaykant claimed to have also been a friend of her father’s – a claim disputed in court – and came to visit him in his bed in London’s Northwick Hospital.
Mr Sherwin said that Vijaykant told Laxmikant he could draw up a will – despite not being a qualified lawyer.
He said Vijaykant claims to have taken notes of the meeting, in which Laxmikant expressed ‘revulsion’ towards Mrs Stewart-Brown and Piyush, who he said were only ‘after his property,’ before declaring: ‘everything goes to Anju.’
Mr Sherwin added that Vijaykant was not a qualified lawyer, and that the execution of the will allegedly took place shortly after Mr Patel was admitted to hospital for lethargy and dizziness, coughing up blood.
The home in Harrow, north-west London that was left to Laxmikant Patel’s eldest daughter in the fiercely contested will
Mrs Stewart-Brown claims her older sister drifted apart from the family after the age of 15 when she moved to India, later embracing the Hare Krishna creed over her family’s Swaminarayan Hindu beliefs before ‘rejoining’ the family in 2018.
The cutting out of Mrs Stewart-Brown and her brother was ‘inexplicable’, Mr Sherwin concluded.
‘From 2019 onwards, however, Anju and (her husband) began to take much more involvement in the deceased’s finances and personal affairs,’ he added.
‘They procured the 2019 will. They controlled access to the deceased, especially during the key period of August 2021.
‘Further, they are Hare Krishna devotees, and they isolated the deceased from his previous dedication to the Swaminarayan faith, which he shared with his previous friends, and the other members of his family.’
But Anju, who returned to live in the UK in 1983, has denied being distanced from her parents, with her barrister, James Kane, claiming she always ‘shared a close and loving relationship’ with them.
From the witness box, Anju herself also insisted that she had only ever been distanced from Mrs Stewart-Brown and that there was no conflict between her and her parents.
‘I wasn’t estranged from my family, I was with my sister. She chose to disconnect from me,’ she told the judge.
Further, she claimed her father had become disillusioned with Mrs Stewart-Brown after she allegedly removed ‘important documents’ such as title deeds, insurance papers and bank statements from a locker or safe deposit box that was his.
Her barrister Mr Kane added: ‘The documentary evidence makes plain that by – at the latest – October 2019, Laxmikant had formed a sharply negative view of both Piyush and Bhavenetta.
‘He asked his friend Vijaykant to draw up a will for him in favour of Anju, the child he felt had done most for him.
‘Vijaykant did so and Laxmikant executed the will. The evidence of Vijaykant and the attesting witnesses is clear that Laxmikant knew perfectly well what the effect of executing the will would be and approved of it.’
As executor of the estate, Vijaykant Patel is defending the claim alongside Anju, while the two sisters’ older brother, Piyush, who lives in Texas, is taking a neutral stance.
