Ive written 30,000 wills these are the strangest requests

A couple who set up their own will writing company have told of all the strangest requests they have received – including being paid in crabs.Robert and Gill Phipps set up Pembroke Will Writers in 2000 with a second-hand laptop and printer in the dining room of their home.A quarter of a century and 30,000 wills later, they have probably seen and heard it all – from requests with no legal bearing to families challenging what loved ones had wanted.In one of the strangest encounters over the years, the family-run company based in Gillingham, Kent, say they were paid for their services with a live crab.Robert, aged 62, said: “I had a client who couldn’t pay me, but we always talked about seafood, so he gave me a huge live crab as part of the payment.“It had elastic bands around its claws.I felt so bad for it, so I drove it down to Sharp’s Green in Gillingham and released it into the sea.“I was worried someone might think I was up to something suspicious, so I actually called the police to let them know.“I said ‘If anyone reports someone acting suspicious, it’s just me, putting a crab back into the sea.’”Because of client confidentiality, Robert said he can’t go into too many details, but says it’s often tricky to marry people’s requests with what is legally possible.For example, he once had a mom who wanted to ensure her sons didn’t spend their inheritance on “fast cars and fast women”.He said: “Who defines fast women? I tried to explain that you can’t really put that in a will.

All what will happen is there’ll be endless court arguments over what counts as a ‘fast car’ or ‘fast woman’.“We always tell clients not to rule from the grave; if you’re leaving money, it’s better to trust people to use it wisely.”While most wills involve relatively modest sums, Robert and Gill, 61, have dealt with some major arrangements, including “someone from London” who had over $108 million to leave.At the other end of the sca...