Background
Clifford Stanley Perrin died in December 2025, leaving a modest Hervey Bay property subject to a reverse mortgage. From about 2012, he had been drawn into an online “romance” relationship with “Stella Helena Perrin”, whom he believed to be his wife after a purported proxy marriage. He sent money, gift cards, bank and identity information, and other assistance to Stella over many years.
Mr Perrin’s 3 May 2024 will appointed Stella as executor and gave her the bulk of his estate. It provided that, if Stella died before him, his daughter Tanya Maree Stankovich would be executor and receive his entire estate. After his death, Ms Stankovich obtained evidence that the marriage and inheritance documents supplied by Stella were forged, that no marriage was registered, and that Stella would not verify her identity despite substituted service.
The Court’s Holding
Treston J pronounced the will valid in solemn form but held that Stella was not a real person, or did not exist in the manner Mr Perrin believed. Her appointment as executor and the gifts to her therefore failed. The finding of fraud was made applying the Briginshaw standard, based on the false documents, the absence of any real-world meeting or verifiable identity, and the pattern of demands for money and personal information.
The court held that the gift-over clause in favour of Ms Stankovich applied under the rule in Jones v Westcomb. Although the clause expressly referred to Stella predeceasing Mr Perrin, the court found it ineluctable that he would have intended his daughter to take if he had foreseen that Stella did not exist. In the alternative, the provisions favouring Stella could have been severed because they rested on Mr Perrin’s false assumption of her identity and character.
Key Takeaways
- A validly executed will may still fail in part where its named beneficiary is fictitious.
- A gift-over clause can extend to an unforeseen contingency only where the will and admissible evidence make that intention necessary, not merely fair.
- The daughter was entitled to probate as executor and to the residue as sole beneficiary; costs were payable from the estate on an indemnity basis.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how probate courts can address wills shaped by romance fraud without treating every failed beneficiary gift as an intestacy. It applies the narrow Jones v Westcomb principle to a modern online-scam setting while preserving the testator’s demonstrated fallback intention.