When it comes to succession planning many individuals, together with their advisers, spend years planning and making preparations. However, at a private client succession seminar hosted by McDermott Will & Emery (MWE) last week (12/02/2019), MWE partner, Nicholas Holland, and senior associate Jennifer Ronz examined whether an unsent text message could undo all this hard work and actually replace a client’s Will.

Using the case study of Nichol; Nichol v Nichol [2017] in Queensland as an example the pair explained to the audience how this is indeed possible. In this case, Mark Nichol committed suicide in October 2016. His mob...