The $2 million inheritance and the online romance
Months before he died, a man changed his will to leave most of his fortune to a person he’d never met.
An Australian man made a will that left the bulk of his $2 million estate to an online love interest. A judge found the person didn’t exist.
In a case that exposes some of the dangers of virtual romances, the Victorian Supreme Court was required to unravel the inheritance mystery and decide how the man’s assets should be distributed after he died.
The man changed his will after striking up an online relationship.Credit: Monique Westermann
The man, from Kew in Melbourne’s inner east, had a series of online relationships after his partner of 40 years died in 2017.
The last of those was a short-lived relationship with a person purporting to be an American called Kyle Stuart Jackson. The relationship started in early 2022.
The pair had never met in person. The man changed his will in August 2022 to name Jackson as his chief beneficiary and the executor of his estate.
“The deceased made his will in contemplation of his possible marriage to Mr Jackson, albeit he did not ever meet him in person,” Associate Judge Caroline Anne Goulden said in a decision in December.
‘My relationship with [the deceased] was special and I am yet to recover from his demise.’
Kyle Stuart Jackson, who was named as the chief beneficiary
The Victorian man died in October 2022. His main asset was a home that was sold in 2023 for $2.5 million.
His will named his ex-wife as executor if Jackson was unable or unwilling to act, gave her $100,000, and said she would inherit the rest if Jackson died before him.
The ex-wife, who eventually stepped in as executor, applied to the court for the determination of questions relating to the administration of the estate.
The court examined the evidence and concluded that Jackson “does not exist in the manner understood by the deceased, or at all”. The ex-wife was “entitled to distribute the estate without further regard for Mr Jackson’s interest”, the court said.
The ex-wife’s solicitors at Melbourne law firm KHQ Lawyers went to great lengths to contact Jackson.
A person who claimed to be Jackson said in an email to the deceased’s former lawyer that he did not want to be a beneficiary. He told the ex-wife’s lawyers in a later email that he was happy for her to be executor, with “a caveat”.
“I must be intimated of every step of the process … as well as entitled to 15% of his estates [sic] value and I will decide whom or what charity to send my share to,” the email said.
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“My relationship with [the deceased] was special and I am yet to recover from his demise.”
In March 2023, a person purporting to be Jackson sent an email, attaching an image that appeared to show a page from a US passport for a Kyle Jackson born in 1984.
A residential address in Pennsylvania was supplied but the current resident was unaware that a Kyle Jackson had ever lived there.
The judge said the ex-wife engaged a US-based private detective “to locate or obtain information about the identity and existence of Mr Jackson”. The detective’s final report last year concluded that the passport was fraudulent and Jackson was not a real person.
The person claiming to be Jackson had previously sent a “cheque” to his online friend for $1.2 million in Canadian dollars but the Toronto-Dominion Bank confirmed in 2023 that it wasn’t valid.
Rachael Hocking, principal solicitor at KHQ Lawyers and an accredited specialist in wills and estates, acted for the ex-wife of the deceased, who remained his closest long-term friend.
She said the facts of the case were “particularly unique” but legal issues about how a will should be interpreted were commonly encountered.
“With the increasing use of technology in our everyday lives, including relationships and the risk of online scams, there is a concern that we may see more and more of these types of factual scenarios,” Hocking said.
She said the case involved two separate court applications. The first was an application for probate, which involved the court “passing over ‘Kyle’ as the instituted or first-named executor under the will”.
Probate confirms the validity of a will and allows the executor to administer the estate according to its terms.
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“Our client was the substitute executor and could only apply [for probate] if we were able to persuade the court that the instituted executor was unable, unwilling or unsuitable to act,” Hocking said.
The ex-wife then administered the estate, including selling property. The second application concerned how the estate should be distributed.
“It was an enormous task for our client, who, in my opinion, did an excellent job in discharging her duties,” Hocking said.
Communication with the person purporting to be Jackson was conducted “solely by email and was sporadic and extremely difficult”, Hocking said.
“We had to undertake extensive investigations … to ensure that our client was properly discharging her duty as executor to try and locate, communicate with and identify ‘Kyle’.”
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