Stamp collector changes will and leaves £250,000 fortune to cleaner sparking bitter court battle

Ray Watts left his estate including his stamp collection valued at £250k to his cleaner. His will, which was changed in 2019 just two years before his death, is now being contested by his step-daughter who is set to inherit £1 from the late Lloyds bank clerk

An elderly stamp collector’s £250,000 fortune is at the centre of a court battle after he changed his will and left nearly everything to his carer. Ray Watts also sold his £200,000 collection, including stamps dating as far back as the 1840s, to Sue Pope for just £1.

The keen philatelist hired her as his cleaner after advertising for the role online and she eventually became an informal carer. He had originally wanted to split his estate among his family, but wrote a new will in 2019 - two years before his death aged 90.

Ray, a former Lloyds Bank clerk, left £15,000 to each of his three daughters and the rest of his estate to Sue. His estate included his share of the family home in Great Waldingfield, near Sudbury, Suffolk.

In his previous will he also left £15,000 to his step-daughter Beverley Neate, the daughter of his second wife. But he then executed a codocil - altering the effect of a will - in 2020 slashing her share to a “deliberately derisory” £1.

Beverley is now fighting to overturn the will at Central London County Court. She claims her step-dad could not really have intended to disinherit her and leave most of his fortune to Sue.

Beverly also claims Sue cannot prove that it reflected her stepdad's true intentions. But Sue said Ray cut out his “disrespectful” step-daughter after she changed the locks at his home when he was in hospital.

The court was told Ray had three children by his first wife Madeline Watts, who died in 1995. He then married mum-of-three Fay Watts, with Beverley and her brothers Mark and Sean Brennan becoming his step-children.

In a 2007 will he intended to leave his estate to his six children and step-children equally. But the new will was made in 2019 after he had been admitted to hospital following a serious fall at home.

Beverley’s lawyers claim Sue cannot show that the ailing pensioner had “knowledge and approval” of the will’s contents. Her barrister Nathan Wells said Ray had been described in hospital as “confused” and there had been a “slowing of his thinking”. He also said she contacted solicitors to attend to Ray in hospital before the will was altered.

Mr Wells said other circumstances surrounding the 2019 will “should excite the suspicion of the court”. Sue said: “I cannot reconcile the instructions behind that codicil with the Ray that I had known for so many years.”

Elis Gomer, representing Sue, said Beverley’s challenge was based on a “rather nebulous jumble of allegations”. He said the will “reflected his testamentary wishes as he expressed them to be”. Mr Gomer said Sue’s account had corroborated by Ray’s three biological children. The case continues.