Battle of wills plays out over high-flyer’s $20 million estate

A battle of wills over who should inherit the multimillion-dollar estate of high-flying eastern suburbs businessman Andrew Findlay, whose body was found washed up on rocks near The Gap almost a year ago following a fishing mishap, has played out in equally dramatic fashion in the Supreme Court of NSW.

A mystery former lover, family feuds, a trophy home named Camelot and a tragedy that gripped the city have all featured in the hearing played out before Justice Kelly Rees in Courtroom 10D at Queens Square.

On one side was Findlay’s former de facto partner and mother of his three children, Liz Kemp, a one-time podiatrist, social pages fixture and ex-wife of cricketer Brett Lee, who now describes her occupation as “domestic duties”.

Kemp, who also has an older son to Lee, is suing for the court to recognise Findlay’s 2015 will, written before they finalised a multi-million-dollar property settlement and four years before their relationship broke down. It names her as the sole executor and beneficiary of his estate, estimated to be worth up to $20 million and includes the mid-century architect-designed trophy home Camelot in Centennial Park, which is potentially worth more than $15 million.

However, Findlay’s family want the court to recognise a June 5, 2019 unsigned and unwitnessed will drawn up by Findlay. This document, drafted following his estrangement with Kemp, named his cousin David Findlay as the new executor of his will.

The court heard it reflected his wish that his three children – now aged 10 and under – would inherit his estate.

Findlay’s 2019 email to his cousin said: “I just sent you the will as I haven’t changed it with my lawyer yet. If I went under a bus between now and then my wishes would at least be clear.”

On Monday the Findlay family’s barrister Lindsay Ellison SC acknowledged there was no “dispute” that Andrew Findlay’s paperwork might have been “sloppy”.

Kemp’s barrister Miles Condon SC argued the 2019 will could not be regarded as his official will as Findlay, an accomplished businessman who had launched and managed multi-million dollar companies, negotiated contracts and already knew the requirements of legally binding wills, yet had not executed the document despite years passing since he drafted it.

“Andrew should be taken to have known that a will had to be executed with due formality,” Condon offered in his final submissions on Thursday.

The Findlay family’s lawyers argued Andrew was “not a solicitor but a businessman. He knew that a will can be executed, but not that it has to be executed”.

Ellison said the 2019 will, prepared in a document titled “Will”, while missing signatures, had been considered in great detail by Findlay and was much more than “a shopping list or a page from a notepad”.

Findlay’s grieving family, including father David and sister Georgia Moffat, watched proceedings just metres away from their now estranged former defacto-in-law Kemp, who sat expressionless throughout the hearing surrounded by her legal team.

The court heard Findlay and Kemp finalised their property settlement in 2021, some 18 months after they split. During cross-examination, Kemp agreed that their “future financial relationship” had been “defined” during that time, prohibiting her from making any future claim on Findlay’s estate in the event of his death, just as he had signed away any right to make a claim on hers.

Following their property settlement, Kemp purchased a $4.25 million five-bedroom “architecturally reimagined” home in Balgowlah which remains in her name, while Findlay retained the Centennial Park former family home. Following Findlay’s death in July 2023, the court heard Kemp changed the security access code to the Centennial Park property. In May this year, she obtained a preliminary court order to live at the residence with her children.

The hearing took an extraordinary turn on Tuesday with the emergence of marketing executive Naomi Roth.

She told the court that, although she was not one to “kiss and tell”, she was compelled to come forward after reading about the case in the Herald last month.

Roth told the court that during her short-lived romance with Findlay in 2021, 18 months after he split with Kemp, he had told her about his wishes for his estate: “He would retain the Centennial Park house … she [Kemp] would not get her hands on it. He made a lot of acrimonious expressions [about Kemp].”

Roth also told the court she discovered “after the fact” that Findlay was also in a relationship with Woollahra boutique owner Lakshmi Pillai while she was seeing him.

The exact timing of Findlay and Kemp’s relationship breakdown also became the subject of scrutiny.

Kemp told the court she had been unsure about the meaning of the term “separation”, arguing she remained living with Findlay and attending relationship counselling for at least a month after Findlay’s diary noted they split on May 20, 2019. Another entry revealed relationship problems in January that year.

“We were a couple, we had issues and we had great times. We did not discuss separation until May 2019,” Kemp told the court.

Kemp, who denied any prior knowledge of the 2019 document, was asked about an email trail she responded to in 2020 in which she writes to Findlay: “I guess though that knowing eight days after we separated you changed your will I learned quickly what I was dealing with.”

Kemp denied her words confirmed she knew about Findlay’s 2019 unsigned will, telling the court she was “unsure” of what it was she was referring to in the email, or how she acquired such specific knowledge about changing his will.

“I honestly do not recall,” she said.

On Thursday Justice Rees reserved judgment for a later date.

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