Unsigned Will: Perumal v Janse Van Rensburg

Perumal v Janse Van Rensburg N.O and Others [2025] ZAGPPHC 145

The applicant, Ms Alana Berenice Perumal (“Ms Perumal”), and the deceased, Mr Robert Stanton (“Stanton”), were in a romantic relationship and got engaged in July 2022. The second respondent, Ms Claudia Louise van der Colf (“Ms van der Colf”), is the mother of Stanton’s child, and their relationship ended in 2020. In July 2022, while Ms Perumal was with him, Stanton used his laptop to make amendments to his will to reflect her as his life partner and beneficiary. He then emailed the amended will to the first respondent, Mr Abraham Jacobus Janse van Rensburg, the executor of his estate, with a message to “amend it and please send back via me to sign”.

Mr Janse van Rensburg confirmed receiving the will and sent it back with the changes on 4 August 2022. However, Ms Perumal, who had access to Stanton’s emails, couldn’t find this specific email. Due to poor health, Stanton was in and out of the hospital in 2022. A month before he died, on 9 March 2023, Stanton sent a voice message to the first respondent asking for an update on his amended will. According to his message, he had not yet seen or signed it. Stanton died in his sleep on 9 April 2023, while visiting Cape Town with his mother and daughter.

The primary legal issue for consideration was whether the court should exercise its discretion under section 2(3) of the Wills Act¹ to validate an unsigned document as Stanton’s last will and testament. Specifically, the court had to determine:

Whether the document was drafted by the deceased.
Whether the deceased died after drafting the document.
Whether the deceased intended the document to be his will despite the lack of signature.

The application essentially sought to circumvent the formal requirement in section 2(1)(a)(ii) of the Wills Act that a will must be signed by the testator.

Ms Perumal sought an order to declare the amended document (Annexure “A”) as Stanton’s last will and testament and to direct the Master of the High Court to accept it for the purpose of the Administration of Estates Act.² She argued that Stanton had personally drafted the amendments to the will to reflect her as his life partner. She further contended that Stanton’s voice message from 9 March 2023, requesting an update on the will because he had not yet seen or signed it, proved his intention for the document to be his final will. This also contradicted the executor’s claim that he had sent the amended will back in August 2022.

Ms van der Colf opposed the application, arguing that there were material disputes of fact that prevented the court from making a decision. Her primary argument was that because Stanton had not signed the amended will after it was allegedly sent back to him, he must have changed his mind and did not intend for the document to be his final will. The court noted that this was a speculative argument.³

The court upheld the application and declared Annexure “A” as the last will and testament of Stanton. It ordered the Master of the High Court to accept it and ordered Ms van der Colf to pay Ms Perumal’s legal costs.

The court applied the legal principles of section 2(3) of the Wills Act, which allows a court to order the Master to accept a document as a will, even if it does not meet all the formal requirements. This is possible as long as the court is satisfied that the deceased intended the document to be their will. The court confirmed that the purpose of this section is to ensure that a testator’s genuine intention is not undermined by failure to comply with formalities. To succeed under section 2(3), the court noted that an applicant must prove, on a balance of probabilities, three things:

The document was drafted or executed by the deceased.
The deceased has since died.
The deceased intended the document to be their will.

The court found that the first two requirements were met, as Stanton had drafted the changes himself and had passed away. It then focused on the third requirement, and concluded that Stanton’s intention was “self-evident.” Key undisputed facts supported this: Stanton personally drafted the amendments, which referred to the Ms Perumal as his life partner and made provisions for her. He had also sent a message indicating the changes needed to be made before he could sign. Most importantly, the court noted a voice message Stanton left for the first respondent a month before his death. In the message, he inquired about the amended will, as he had not seen it. The court found this “completely destroyed” Ms van der Colf’s argument that Stanton had changed his mind, and demonstrated his continued intention and a “sense of urgency.”

Author’s opinion

I’ve written about wills before, and I will certainly do so again in the near future, given their importance. In this case, the court’s decision was sound and was a great application of section 2(3) of the Wills Act. It rightly identified the section’s purpose to prevent the frustration of a testator’s genuine intent due to a lack of formal compliance and effectively dismantled the second respondent’s argument, which was based on speculation rather than concrete evidence. By focusing on indisputable facts, particularly the voice message left by the deceased a month before his death, the court was able to establish his clear and continuous intention for the amended document to be his final will.

I also appreciated that the court referred to cases like Van der Merwe v Master of the High Court⁴ and Thirion v Die Meester,⁵ which established that a lack of a signature is not an absolute barrier to a document being declared a will under section 2(3). This case reinforces important principles in succession law, especially the idea that formal defects should not defeat clear testamentary intent. It contributes to the growing body of jurisprudence that takes a flexible approach to will validation while maintaining appropriate safeguards against fraud.

While the court found the evidence sufficient, the case does highlight the challenges of proving negative facts, like whether the email was ever received, and relying heavily on one piece of evidence, such as the voice message. And of course, there’s the punitive costs order against the second respondent. While one could argue it was justified by her conduct, I can’t help but feel it may discourage legitimate challenges to contested wills.

That said, the decision serves important policy objectives by preventing technical formalities from undermining genuine intentions, protecting vulnerable beneficiaries who might otherwise be disinherited due to administrative failures, and encouraging proper estate planning while offering remedies when systems fail.

You can read the full Perumal v Janse Van Rensburg judgement here.