This article was written by Nancy Wang Principal Solicitor at W & G Lawyers.
Not every will is a neatly typed document, signed in a solicitor’s office with two witnesses looking on. Queensland law recognises that a person’s genuine final wishes should not fail simply because the paperwork wasn’t perfect. The recent decision of Justice Crow in Hall v Hall [2026] QSC 134 is a striking illustration of this principle, involving a handwritten note left by a woman shortly before she took her own life.
The facts
Jacqueline Hall died at her Bellbird Park home in January 2025. On the couch of her downstairs living room, police found a handwritten note that they described in their report as “a crude last will and testament,” leaving everything she owned to her daughter, Nicole. The note read, in substance, that this was her last will and testament and that anything she had was to go to her daughter, closing with the line “It’s not much but it’s hers.”
The note did not meet the formal requirements for a valid will. It was not signed in the presence of two witnesses, as the Succession Act 1981 (Qld) ordinarily requires. Nicole applied to the Court to have the note recognised as her mother’s informal will. Her two brothers — who had been left nothing — opposed the application, arguing that their mother lacked the mental capacity to make a valid will at the time she wrote it.
The legal framework
Section 18 of the Succession Act 1981 (Qld) allows a court to dispense with the formal execution requirements where three conditions are met:
- there is a document that has not been formally executed as a will;
- the document purports to state the testamentary intentions of a deceased person; and
- the court is satisfied that the deceased intended the document to form their will.
The first two requirements were easily met. The note plainly recorded Ms Hall’s intentions and, just as plainly, had not been formally witnessed. The real battleground was the third requirement — and, wrapped up within it, the question of whether Ms Hall had testamentary capacity when she wrote the note.
Testamentary capacity and the effect of suicide
A person has testamentary capacity, broadly speaking, where they understand that they are making a will, are aware of the general nature and value of their estate, appreciate who might reasonably expect to benefit from it, and are able to weigh the competing claims of those people. These principles trace back to the classic case of Banks v Goodfellow and were more recently summarised by the Queensland Court of Appeal in Greer v Greer [2021] QCA 143.
Importantly, the Court confirmed a point that offers reassurance in cases like this: suicide does not create any presumption that a person lacked testamentary capacity. The circumstances of a death by suicide call for careful scrutiny, but they do not automatically defeat a will. The focus remains on what the evidence actually shows about the person’s state of mind at the relevant time.
Because the sons had been excluded from the estate, Justice Crow accepted that the Court needed to exercise “a significant degree of vigilance” in examining the circumstances.
Why the will was upheld
Several strands of evidence persuaded the Court that Ms Hall knew what she was doing when she wrote and signed the note:
A consistent, long-held intention. For at least a decade, Ms Hall had told family and friends — including her brother, her father, and a close friend of 47 years — that everything she had was to go to her daughter. This was no impulsive decision.
Awareness of competing claims. Shortly before her death, Ms Hall sent a Facebook message to her former partner stating, in effect, that he would not receive anything and that she had left it all to Nicole. Justice Crow treated this as clear evidence that she had turned her mind to who might expect to benefit and had made a deliberate choice.
A deliberate act to prove sobriety. In one of the more compelling findings, the Court noted that Ms Hall had photographed the note on her phone but did not send it to anyone. Justice Crow inferred this was a deliberate step to demonstrate that, at the time she wrote and signed the document, she was not intoxicated — knowing her body would later be found and tested.
Careful analysis of the timing. Through a close reading of Ms Hall’s text and Facebook messages across the day, the Court concluded that the note was most likely written before she began drinking heavily in the mid-afternoon. There was no expert evidence, and no basis to infer, that she was significantly affected by alcohol or medication when she actually composed and signed the note.
Character and circumstances. Ms Hall ran a home daycare business, kept a neat and well-ordered home, and was plainly aware of what she owned. Her self-deprecating final line was read not as confusion, but as a fair and emotional comment on a modest estate.
Justice Crow was satisfied that Ms Hall had testamentary capacity and intended the note to be her will. The Court dispensed with the formal execution requirements, declared the informal will valid, and made orders enabling Nicole to administer the estate.
The takeaway
Hall v Hall is a reminder that Queensland courts will look to the substance of a person’s wishes rather than the form in which they are expressed. An informal document — even one written in the most tragic of circumstances — can be upheld as a valid will where the evidence establishes both a genuine testamentary intention and the mental capacity to form it.
That said, informal will applications are expensive, uncertain, and can pit family members against one another at an already painful time. The far better course is to have a properly drafted and witnessed will in place. If you would like to make or update your will, or if you are dealing with an estate where the deceased’s wishes were not formally recorded, the succession team at W & G Lawyers can help.
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