Elena Klein, the widow of a 16-year marriage to Alexander Klein, has finally succeeded in her claim for reasonable financial provision.
Alexander and Elena met in Jerusalem in 2001 when he was 68 and she was 27. He persuaded her to move to England and they married in 2003. Alexander actively discouraged Elena from studying or working. Despite that, on his death in March 2020 he left Elena only £300,000, on condition that she did not contest the Will. He appointed his long-term business associate / secretary, Ms Adler, as executrix and trustee. His estate was valued at over £9,000,000, primarily consisting of shares in a number of property investment companies which he had built up prior to their marriage. He left residue 10% to Ms Adler and 90% to a discretionary charitable trust.
Ms Adler failed to progress the estate administration and so, in 2021, Elena successfully applied to remove her as executrix. The Court replaced her with an independent trust corporation. The trust corporation experienced difficulties in establishing estate values and Elena was only able to issue her claim for financial provision in 2023. Given it was already three years since her husband's death and she had very limited other financial resource, Elena also applied for interim provision to meet her ongoing financial needs pending outcome of her claim.
Just days before the interim provision hearing, Ms Adler claimed for the first time, and directly contradicting her evidence in the Removal proceedings, that Alexander had held his shares on trust for her. If successful, this claim would have largely wiped out the estate. Chief Master Shuman dismissed the claim following a trial in October 2024. She described the claim as 'egregious' and a 'cynical use of litigation'. Elena was awarded her costs on the indemnity basis, which has been outlined in this previous article.
Meanwhile, because Ms Adler's barrister had criticised her for not enforcing the original costs order in the Removal Proceedings, Elena applied for an order for sale of a property Ms Adler owned.
Ms Adler stopped engaging in proceedings and so, to ensure that the trial of Elena's substantive application could proceed, the trust corporation applied to represent the interests of charity (the 90% beneficiary of residue). The Court dismissed a last minute application to adjourn, and the trial proceeded in February 2025, almost five years after Alexander's death.
At trial, Mr Justice Williams balanced the 1975 Act factors to determine reasonable financial provision. In particular, he considered what Elena would have received had her marriage to Alexander ended in divorce rather than by death. He also focused on the uncertainty of the Estate's value in determining the practical structure of an award.
He awarded Elena the family home free of mortgage (valued at £1 million), a lump sum of £1.89m, and 40% of the value of the estate over £7.1m. The judgment ensures Elena's needs will be met and she will share in the expected uplift in the value of her late husband's assets. The Court also ordered that Ms Adler pay Elena's costs of the entire proceedings on the indemnity basis.
The Withers team acting for Elena was Paul Hewitt, Alexandra Dix and Rebecca Edwards, instructing Mark Baxter of 5 Stone Buildings.
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