Challenging The Inheritance Motive: the Bamber wills

[Erik Narramore]

Guilters like to point out a conditional clause in Nevill's will to the effect that Jeremy's inheritance would depend on him continuing to farm.  They use this to support the idea that Nevill could threaten to disinherit Jeremy, hence Jeremy may have formed a motive to murder Nevill and the rest of his family.

I don't find that line of thinking very convincing.  It does not cohere with the facts.

First, wills are secret.  There is a popular (and understandable) misconception about English private law that parents cannot disinherit their children, but the true position is that they can, subject to certain statutory rights for a disinherited child to challenge it.  But let's say Jeremy could challenge a disinheritance on the basis of an argument that he was a financial dependent or something else (I don't think he could have done, but let's say for argument's sake that he could).  Then Nevill would receive that advice from his private solicitor and would arrange to rid himself of Jeremy's services on the farm, thus removing any basis for Jeremy to challenge the wills in the future.  Jeremy was a man in his 20s and had no right to live there.

Maybe you disagree and believe that the reason for all the cloak-and-dagger antics on the part of both Nevill and Jeremy in the run-up to the shootings was that Nevill had received the very sort of advice I say and had decided to remove Jeremy from the scene by kicking him out?  Maybe that led to the shootings?

So now we must consider my own reasons for rejecting what you say.

First, if inheritance was contingent on farming, then Jeremy's actions after the shootings make no sense.  As I have pointed out before, a guilty Jeremy would have been much more conservative and restrained in his actions than the guilt camp claim Jeremy was.  Knowing that his inheritance depended on farming, he would not have given the Henry Smith Trustees the brush-off by indicating he would not live at the farm, nor would he be telling people he was retiring from farming to take up a smallholding in Devon.

Second, I have read both Nevill and June's wills and my recollection is that the condition that Jeremy should farm was only in regard to the fief held from the Henry Smith Trust.  Also, it was not a condition that he should remain in the farming industry.  If it was that, then Evil Jeremy would have been laughing, or since he was a villain, cackling.  Instead, it was a condition along the lines of what I say, that he should farm, a different thing.

However, let's say that my recollection of the wills is wrong and some in the guilt camp are right that Jeremy had to farm or he would have been disinherited altogether.  For now, I can't be bothered to trouble myself re-checking the wills.  Even if it is true that the entire inheritance was conditional on Jeremy continuing to farm (despite the estate encompassing non-fief assets), Jeremy could have circumvented the requirement quite easily.  Provided there was no deed into trust of the estate and everything would go to Jeremy subject to the condition, then there would be no mechanism to enforce the stipulation beyond the point of assent of assets to Jeremy.

The significance of this point is as follows:

Nevill must have received advice to this effect, so can only have put the condition in the will as a requirement of the Henry Smith Trustees, thus specific to the fief, and as a way to encourage Jeremy towards farming, not as a way to disinherit Jeremy (which, as I have explained above, is a funny round-about way to address the issue anyway).  Other than those reasons, the condition would have made no legal sense whatsoever.  I would guess Nevill even discussed the matter with Jeremy - a point that in itself could be interpreted to favour either side of this.  That being so, another of the guilt camp's little theories collapses.