Widower disputes Will in fight with trio over his wife’s estate

After Mr Benjamin Koyier laid his wife Beatrice Toroitich to rest in 2016, he embarked on the legal processes of inheriting her estate.

He filed succession proceedings in the Ngong Magistrate Court and was issued with the grant to manage the estate on February 17, 2017. It was confirmed a month later.

Ms Toroitich owned several properties in Nakuru and Nairobi.

But about nine months later, Mr Koyier was shocked when he visited the National Land Commission offices and discovered an ongoing process of compulsory acquisition of the land where he lived in Ngong.

He learnt that another grant of probate existed that was being used to transfer the property.

To his utter dismay, the grant of probate to the will of his wife had been made to three executors who were known to him as his late wife’s friend Anne Tutoek, his sister-in-law Esther Kiplagat and mother-in-law Joyce Toroitich.

Upon further inquiry, he discovered that the grant originated from a succession petition filed by the three in the High Court in Nakuru.

Forgery and fraudulent

In that matter, filed in April 2017, Ms Tutoek, Ms Kiplagat and Ms Joyce Toroitich petitioned the court for a grant of probate or letters of administration using a will purportedly drafted by Ms Toritich.

In the will, made on September 15, 2016 and signed before Jackline P. A. Omolo Advocate and lawyer Mercyline Akoth Odeyo, Ms Toroitich appointed the three petitioners as executors and trustees of her estate.

She indicated that she was married to Mr Koyier but the two had separated. She distributed her properties to her children and mother, friend and sister and left out Mr Koyier.

Justice Maureen Odero issued the grant of probate to the three in November 2017.

This prompted Mr Koyier to sue, describing the grant as a forgery and fraudulent and seeking to have it revoked.

In court documents, he wants the purported grant submitted to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for examination to establish whether the alleged signatures of the late Ms Toroitich were forgeries.

Mr Koyier claims Ms Toroitich was his wife and that the two lived under the same roof alongside their children until her death. He noted that Ms Toritich was buried in his ancestral land.

He denied separating from his wife and urged the court to revoke the grant.

Abandoned his wife

“I was surprised to learn from the NLC that the petitioners, who are a friend, a sister and the mother to my late wife respectively had filed this petition. There now exist two conflicting grants which were causing confusion and there is a need to revoke one,” he says in court documents.

But the three petitioners oppose Mr Koyier’s application, noting that it is based on false information.

Ms Joyce Toroitich told the court that Mr Koyier had abandoned his wife, who was battling cancer, and was cohabiting with another woman.

The court heard that the three petitioners took care of Ms Beatrice Toroitich until her demise.

Beatrice Toroitich, who was apprehensive that her husband would spend her wealth with this new woman, decided to draft a will and executed it, the three women say.

“Mr Koyier could not have been aware of the will because by then he had abandoned the deceased to live with another woman (with) whom they bore children,” Ms Joyce Toroitich says.

High Court Judge Teresia Matheka directed that the matter in Ngong be transferred to Nakuru to be heard jointly.

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