Family eying nearly $4 million inheritance gets a reality check after relative's deathbed text message
There are countless cases of families fighting over inheritance. However, the final decision regarding the distribution of the inheritance among the beneficiaries solely depends upon the written will of the deceased person. A man's relatives learned this the hard way after he changed his will through a simple text message. The family was very sure they would end up inheriting a wealth that amounted to nearly $4 million (£3 million), but they got a reality check when the matter reached court.
The man named Al-Hasib Mian Muhammad Abdullah al-Mahmood sent a text to his solicitor to make some changes to his will shortly before his death. Mahmood, who had no children, had originally drawn up a will back in 2015, in which he left his assets to his brother-in-law and his kids. However, the family dynamics changed over time and Mahmood's brother-in-law stopped visiting him often. He also became distant from other family members. In 2011, a relative of Mahmood named Masudur Rahman started visiting him frequently while he was studying in the U.K. Rahman formed a close bond with Mahmood and his wife while they lived at their Mitcham property in South London.
Mahmood and Rahman's bond deepened, so much so that he became a father figure to Rahman and also attended his graduation ceremony in 2015. Mahmood's wife passed away in 2020 and after that, Mahmood had a serious discussion with Rahman about his wealth and assets. He gave away the details to Rahman on how to access it after his demise. Rahman was given Mahmood's account numbers and important passwords. Mahmood also made Rahman sit down to fill up the necessary paperwork with him. He also hired a professional will writer named Jonathan Amponsah to write a new will, in which he would leave everything to Rahman. But it was never completed.
On his deathbed, 82-year-old Mahmood sent a text message to the will writer about his new will. Dated October 22, 2020, it read, “Jonathan, I am Al-Mahmood. I agreed that Masudur Rahman will be the absolute own [sic] of all my assets and the executor of my new and last will. This is my final word. I revoked all my previous will done by me and my wife. It’s a difficult time for me. Please help Masud.” However, after Mahmood's death, his brother-in-law raised a dispute at the court, questioning the validity of the text message through which Mahmood had told his will writer to make changes to the paper. But HHJ Paul Matthews from the high court dismissed the demands of Mahmood's brother-in-law and asserted that the text messages sent to the will writer were genuine and Rahman was to inherit the fortune. The court ruled that Mahmood's brother-in-law would get nothing from his estate.
While Mahmood's brother-in-law missed out on receiving the huge fortune because of the altered will and the lack of emotional connection with the child-free couple, one man selflessly gave away his inheritance to a charity. A man from Liverpool named David Clarke had inherited a whopping fortune of £100,000 ($1,24,863) from his mother who passed away almost a decade ago. Clarke came across the idea of democratizing philanthropy where he was able to hand over the fate of his inheritance to the community who could benefit from it. He wrote to 600 addresses in the postcode of his locality and invited people to nominate where the money could be invested. He picked 12 people to form a panel who would make the crucial decision. Clarke and the panel sat through four sessions of discussion to decide that the money would be donated to four charities and each one, including Team Oasis, would receive £25,000 ($31,215).