Michael Tringham reports on recent disputes & troubles
Another intestacy seems to have left the disputing parties with little more than legal costs to argue over. The late Raymond Zeital, a north London accountant, used to incorporate limited liability companies in order to keep his financial affairs secret—often using aliases such as “Rafatjoo”. Following his death Mr Zeital’s sole beneficiaries—his wife, from whom he had separated 20 years earlier, and two daughters—claimed the net proceeds of the sale of a flat owned by one of his companies in which, they asserted, they owned one of two issued shares.
Their claim was disputed by the acknowledged owner of the other share, Stefka Appostolova, with whom Mr Zeital formed a relationship after the separation. The company had been struck off the Companies House register, then restored upon Stefka’s application, and finally placed in voluntary (possibly insolvent) liquidation.
The Court of Appeal has finally decided, 6½ years after Mr Zeital’s death, that his purported transfer of a share to Stefka “fell so far short of the formalities…that the gift failed as imperfect” (Zeital v Kaye [2010]
