Second wife must honour husband's legacy to first

A woman who married her wealthy husband on his deathbed failed yesterday to prevent his first wife from inheriting a large part of his estate he had promised her.

Kathleen Soulsbury, 58, wed Owen Soulsbury at Charing Cross hospital two years after the financier, one of the founders of the Skandia savings group, became ill with leukaemia. He died that evening at the age of 63.

Following his death in October 2000, Mrs Soulsbury refused to pay a £100,000 legacy to his first wife, Elizabeth. Her lawyers claimed a vow that Soulsbury made in 1993 to give her the money when he died in return for stopping maintenance payments of £12,000 a year was not legally binding.

But yesterday, three court of appeal judges ruled that the second Mrs Soulsbury had to honour her late husband's promise, upholding an earlier ruling which awarded the first Mrs Soulsbury £100,000 plus interest. The money is tied up in a Tuscan villa, which Soulsbury renovated in the 1980s.

Elizabeth, of Glenrothes, Fife, married Soulsbury in 1966 and they had three children. They divorced 20 years later, but remained on friendly terms, and Lord Justice Ward added that Soulsbury made "generous gifts" to his ex-wife and children.

In 1987, a judge at Southampton county court ordered that Soulsbury pay his former wife £12,000 a year, less tax, as well as £2,400 a year for each of their two children while they remained under the age of 17.

Soulsbury began living with Kathleen, of Isleworth, west London, in 1992.

A year later, Elizabeth agreed to her former husband's suggestion that he should stop paying maintenance in return for his leaving her £100,000 in his will.

However, the second Mrs Soulsbury said her marriage had the effect of invalidating her husband's will which left the money to Elizabeth.

Lord Justice Ward, sitting with Lady Justice Smith and Lord Justice Longmore, said Elizabeth could have taken her former husband - who received £565,000 in 1988 when Skandia was floated on the stock exchange - to court at any time to recover the unpaid maintenance but chose not to.

Lord Justice Ward said: "Where the promisee has honoured her bargain, the deceased would remain bound to honour his. If he failed to provide payment for her on his death, her right to that payment became enforceable by a direct right of action for breach of contract against his estate."

He said the husband and his former wife had reached a "perfectly valid agreement" and dismissed the widow's appeal.

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