Gay chef Mark Gory was declared the sole heir to his partner’s estate by the Pretoria High Court on Friday after a legal wrangle with the other man’s family.
Gory and his partner, Henry Brooks, met in 2003, bought a house in 2004 and lived together as a married couple until Brooks died suddenly, without a will, in April 2005.
It was then that Brooks’s family started taking things from the house, eventually forcing out Gory and selling it, contending that Gory had no claim on the estate.
In court papers, Gory explained that they established a home, lived together and shared expenses as if they were a married couple.
As same-sex weddings will only be recognised from December 2007, Gory and Brooks never officially married, but Brooks 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.
On Friday, Judge Willie Hartzenberg declared the Intestate Succession Act unconstitutional in failing to acknowledge both spouses and partners in permanent, same-sex life relationships with reciprocal duties of support.
Ruling that the legislation needs to be changed, he declared that Gory and Brooks were indeed such partners and that, as such, Gory is the sole heir to Brooks’s estate.
Hartzenberg ordered that the proceeds of the sale of the house, which was bought by the couple but registered in Brooks’s name, be returned to Gory.
”I’m ecstatic,” Gory said after the ruling. ”It was everything I hoped for. I never wanted to fight about it.”
The net value of Brooks’s estate was estimated to be a mere R9 800, but Gory said it was never about the money. ”It was about the sanctity of our relationship.”
He believed he deserved to inherit Brooks’s estate on the principle that in heterosexual common-law couples, the surviving spouse would be the heir.
Hartzenberg ruled that the two were indeed in a permanent same-sex life partnership.
”It was never about the money. In rand and cents it was not worth the fight; it was about dignity and equality,” said Gory’s attorney, Crystal Cambanis.
Hartzenberg said his ruling is not backdated and will only apply for future cases. He also ordered the executor and Brooks’s parents to pay the costs of the case. — Sapa