Bitter dispute over estate of man who wrote six wills in his final five years of life

Saturday, 4 July 2026

A Christchurch real estate agent who was written into an elderly man’s will shortly before his death will keep $300,000 from his estate.

Bernard Pope, who died in July 2023, had no children or life partner. He lived alone in New Brighton. According to a High Court judgment, he had a brother and a sister and multiple nieces and nephews who he had not heard from in “decades”.

So, shortly before his death, he bequeathed 50% of his estate ‒ just over $300,000 ‒ to his former neighbour of two years, Rochelle Sullivan. Sullivan had become friends with Pope when she lived next door and, in Pope’s words, came to do “everything for him”.

Pope told his lawyers that Sullivan was the only person who looked after and cared for him and was the reason he was “still alive', explaining that his family weren’t in his life.

But Pope’s family later became “deeply suspicious” of Sullivan. They accused her of using their uncle for her own benefit. Following discussions with his nephew - who told Pope that Sullivan “was in it for herself” - he told his lawyer he wished to change his will again, removing Sullivan. The lawyer made an electronic file note, but a new will reflecting this was never signed.

When the lawyer visited Pope several days later, he had changed his mind again, saying he wanted to keep Sullivan in his will. He died less than seven weeks later.

The family, led by Dean Baldwin, Pope’s nephew, executor of the will and enduring power of attorney for property and welfare (EPOA), took the matter to court.

Baldwin argued a new will that excluded Sullivan had been prepared and reviewed, and although it was not signed by Pope before his death, it was a true representation of Pope’s last will and testament.

Almost three years after Pope’s death, Justice Cameron Mander disagreed. Pope’s apparent intentions in the file note were far from clear as his final will and testament, he said.

Sullivan would get to keep half the estate.

No evidence of undue pressure

According to the judgment, Pope and Sullivan met in 2018 when they became neighbours in New Brighton.

Over time, they became friends, and while Sullivan moved away in 2020, they maintained their friendship when she moved back to the seaside suburb in 2022, with a new job as a real estate agent.

By early 2023, Pope was diagnosed with a terminal illness and admitted to Burwood Hospital.

He wanted to return home, but he was a hoarder, and hospital authorities refused to discharge him to a cluttered, unhygienic home. Pope asked Sullivan to help clean up, which she did, allowing him to return home.

But after just one day, Pope called Sullivan to say he could not cope by himself. He was readmitted to Burwood while Sullivan helped a social worker with plans to move him into a rest home ‒ Aldwins House ‒ and organised the sale of his New Brighton property to pay for it.

At Aldwins, in March 2023, Pope engaged new lawyers and told them he wanted their help to sell his house and prepare a new will that appointed Sullivan as his executor. He also said he wanted to leave 80% of his estate to her. His nephews Dean and Stephen Baldwin would get the rest along with an amount for Danielle Sayers ‒ the stepmother of Sullivan’s children.

Pope, who one of his lawyers said in her notes was unwell but had “full capacity”, told them that he wanted to cut his nieces and nephews out of his will as he had not heard from them “for decades”. Sullivan was not at this meeting.

In the end, on his lawyers’ advice, Pope reconsidered and altered the split to give 50% to Sullivan, 40% to Dean Baldwin and 10% to Stephen Baldwin. After the sale of his home his estate was worth about $611,000

About a month later, in May 2023, Pope called his lawyer and asked her to change his will again. This time to cut Sullivan and Sayers out completely and split it among family members.

“Reason for taking out Rochelle and Danielle as Dean has bought [sic] it to light that she was it in for herself,” the lawyer’s notes read.

Baldwin’s lawyer told Sullivan not to visit Pope any more, and the family filed complaints with the police, Age Concern, and the Real Estate Agents Authority. These organisations either took no action or found no evidence to support allegations of financial misconduct or of undue pressure having been placed on Pope.

The question of the estate ended up in the High Court. Pope had altered his will numerous times in his final years. The family argued that the electronic file note was Pope’s “last clearly documented expression of [his] testamentary intentions” and should be validated as such.

Sullivan argued there was evidence he had changed his mind again after he cut her from the will and that his doing so was not “the exercise of his free and independent will and not influenced by erroneous allegations made by Mr Baldwin and his sister”.

Justice Cameron Mander sided with this argument. Specifically, he said Pope’s vacillations on including Sullivan in his will or not “preclude the Court from being able to be satisfied that what he communicated to [his lawyer] on 16 May represented his settled testamentary intentions”.

The questions of undue pressure or false representations were moot, the judge said. The final signed will, leaving 50% to Sullivan and a payment to Sayers stood.

“The application to validate the file note as a codicil to the [will] is declined.”