Bill is home alone while his wife Julie is visiting her parents in Sydney. Unfortunately Bill takes a turn for the worse and begins to suffer debilitating chest pain. He uses his iPhone to call an ambulance which is immediately sent to his home.
Despite planning for a number of years to contact his solicitor regarding the drafting of his will, he never got around to it. While waiting for the ambulance, Bill opens the “Notes” App on his iPhone and using the dictation function, records his wishes regarding his will.
Bill states that he wants the house and the balance of his fixed term deposit to go to Julie and his substantial share portfolio to go to his children from a previous relationship, equally. When the ambulance arrives, Bill tells the paramedics that he has recorded his wishes on his iPhone. Tragically, by the time Bill arrives at the local hospital, he has lost consciousness and is ultimately unable to be resuscitated.
Bills children attend the hospital and the paramedics give Bill’s phone to them and tell them to have a look at it regarding Bill’s last wishes. The children take the phone to a local solicitor who advises them of a recent case in which the court held that wishes documented on an iPhone constituted a valid will. Bill’s children are also advised that without a valid will, they stand to receive very little from their late father’s estate according to the laws of intestacy.
The children make an application to the Supreme Court of New South Wales to have Bill’s iPhone “notes” declared to be a valid will. The application requires evidence regarding the whole of the circumstances. Although the process is an expensive and time-consuming exercise, Bill’s children are successful in their application and at the end of the day, Bill’s wishes were respected.
If Bill had prepared a formal will with his solicitor before his death, this process could have been avoided. This area of law is complex and you should not assume that applications regarding informal wills will be successful. Your individual circumstances may also differ and accordingly, this column cannot be relied upon as legal advice.
