WILL vs WILL

A WOMAN who met a 98-year-old woman on a bus has lost a court battle to claim her property in a lawsuit filed by the other woman's daughter.

Justice Margaret Mohammed ruled in the San Fernando High Court that there was actual undue influence in making Annettelena Eltine Charles, 98, give her house and land in Marabella, via a new will, to a woman she had just met on the bus.

Charles's daughter, Gemma Attale, sued the woman – Michelle Pauline Russell Lwiseh – claiming she, Attale, is Charles' only daughter and by will dated January 1972, her mother gave her the house and land. Attale said her mother could not have been of sound mind, memory and understanding to make a fresh will, having made one in 1972.

Before Justice Mohammed, Lwiseh claimed Attale lived abroad and it was she who took care of the elderly Charles and in 2014, Charles made a new will bequeathing the property to her.

In a trial as to had the rightful will, the judge delivered a 37-page judgment. Mohammed noted in her ruling that Charles died 14 days before the new will surfaced.

Mohammed said that Lwiseh admitted to meeting the elderly Chales in a bus in 2011. She began to visit her and took care of some of her needs and eventually, when Charles died, Lwiseh sought to probate the 2014 will in which she rendered the 1972 will a nullity.

The judge said she had to resolve issues of whether the new will was executed in accordance with law; did Charles knew and approve of the will; was she of sound mind; and whether the will was obtained under undue influence.

Attorney Edwin Roopnarine, representing Attale, submitted that the 2014 will was executed 14 days before Charles died. A doctor was not present to attest to her state of mind, and Charles also did not have independent legal advice.

Mohammed, in her judgment, referred to the evidence of bus driver Arthur Gaskin, who testified for Lwiseh, saying Charles often rode in the bus he drove. They became good friends and she usually sat behind the driver's seat. Once he heard her say she would leave her property to Lwiseh and her two children.

Mohammed, however, said the court found that given the noise in the bus, and traffic outside, as well as Gaskin's having to focus on the road, it was not possible for him to engage in any lengthy conversation with Charles.

Mohammed found Lwiseh was the only person with the motive to prepare the 2014 will and take it to Charles's house.

"The deceased was in a frail physical state when she signed the 2014 will," Mohammed said.

In the absence of any evidence as well, Mohammed said, of whom Charles instructed to prepare the 2014 will, and the fact that she did not get independent legal advice, Lwiseh's claim to Charles's estate fails.

The judge also ordered her to pay the daughter costs of $42,850.