The iPhone note, Chris Dawson's lawyer brother and a $13m fortune
Was a note on an iPhone a wealthy Sydneysider's last will? A NSW court was asked to decide in a dispute involving a $13 million estate and a raft of potential beneficiaries, including the elder brother of convicted murderer Chris Dawson.
Peter Dawson, a Dural lawyer, stood to receive more than $300,000 from the estate of his long-time client, the late property developer Colin Peek, if the note was a will. Peek's close friend Brad Wheatley, a real estate agent, would have received about $10 million.
The note, headed 'Last Will of Colin L Peek', was discovered on Peek's iPhone three days after his death. Wheatley and Dawson found it at his home in Bella Vista Waters in Sydney's Hills District.
But Peek's brother Ronald, his only sibling, filed Supreme Court proceedings in a bid to claim the entire estate.
He argued his brother did not intend the iPhone note to operate as his will, and that Colin had died without a will on August 16, 2022, aged 79. On that basis, Ronald said he was entitled to the whole estate under NSW succession laws because his brother was not survived by his wife, son or parents.
Wheatley, who was referred to in the iPhone note as Colin's executor, filed a cross-claim, seeking a declaration that 'the informal will was valid and forms the will of the deceased', Justice Mark Richmond said.
In his decision on Friday, Richmond found in favour of Colin's brother. The judge said he was 'not satisfied that Colin intended that the note, without more on his part, to have present operation as his will'.
'Under the terms of the note, the bulk of the deceased's estate (approximately $10.3 million) will pass to Mr Wheatley, with a smaller gift (approximately $990,000) to the deceased's brother.'
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