The Pretoria High Court has reserved judgement in an application by a Gauteng chef to change intestate legislation that prevents him from inheriting his gay partner’s estate.
Henley-on-Klip chef Mark Gory sought an order declaring unconstitutional a Section of the Intestate Succession Act of 1987, which excludes reference to same-sex life partners where it refers to ”spouse”.
He also wanted the court to declare that he and his partner, Henry Brooks, were partners in a permanent same-sex life partnership in which they had undertaken reciprocal duties of support and that he was the sole heir to Brooks’s estate.
Gory asked the court to declare the sale of their house in Bezuidenhout Valley invalid.
Brooks left no will when he died suddenly in April 2005. He and Gory had known each other since 2003 and bought the house in 2004. The bond was registered in Brooks’s name.
In court papers, Gory explained that they established a home, lived together and shared expenses as if they were a married couple.
Brooks also gave him a platinum wedding band, announcing their commitment to each other at a special party, attended by Brooks’s parents.
Gory felt violated when Brooks’s family started removing items from their home and eventually forced him to move out of the house.
Counsel for Gory, D I Berger SC, argued that the curator of Brooks’s estate, Pretoria attorney Daniel Kolver, should have tried to settle Gory’s claim against the estate.
Instead, Kolver treated the grieving man with utter contempt, said Berger. He tried to ”bully him into submission” and sold the house three days after inviting Gory to go to court with his claim.
”He was desperate. He was grieving for a lost partner. He had a curator against him and his partner’s parents coming into his house and taking things. He did not want to lose the home he had built up with his partner.”
Berger asked the court not only to remove Kolver as curator of the estate, but also to order him and Brooks’s parents to pay the costs of the application because of their ”reprehensible” conduct.
Counsel for Kolver and Brooks’s parents said Kolver ”was only doing his legal duty” and was not in a position to advise the couple to settle the matter.
Judge Willie Hartzenberg, however, said it was clear from correspondence that Kolver did not try to settle the dispute in a sensible manner, as he should have, but was arrogant and sarcastic.
He said if Kolver was doing his legal duty, he ”did so without thinking”. — Sapa