Australian couple’s 74-year ‘The Notebook’ style love story ends in bitter $3.8million will war: Why a judge ruled three sons get just $5,000 while the daughter inherits a fortune

By SARAH BROOKES – SENIOR REPORTER, AUSTRALIA

Published: 09:32 EDT, 14 October 2026 | Updated: 09:32 EDT, 14 October 2026

A judge has compared an Australian couple’s extraordinary marriage to the enduring love story immortalised in The Notebook while deciding a bitter inheritance dispute in the NSW Supreme Court.

The unusual judgment begins not with legal technicalities but with Nicholas Sparks’ famous tale of Noah and Allie, in which an elderly husband reads from a notebook to his wife as her memory fades.

More than half a world away from the novel’s North Carolina setting, Justice Michael Meek said another love story had unfolded in Murwillumbah, northern NSW, between Victor and Ivy ‘Dolly’ Wade, who married in 1947.

By 2018, they had been married for 71 years. That same year, Victor’s will declared one of its purposes was ‘providing the most appropriate care for my loving wife’.

Victor died in November 2023 aged 96, leaving an estate worth about $3.8million, largely made up of property in Murwillumbah. His wife, Ivy, had died about 22 months earlier.

But Victor’s decision to have his will drawn up by his nephew Edward, a retired schoolteacher with no formal legal training, using a template he found through Google, would later spark a major family dispute.

The homemade will left the remainder of Victor’s estate to his daughter Dianne McKenney, but immediately after the gift contained the prominently formatted words: ‘FOR THE PURPOSE OF – Providing the most appropriate care for my loving wife Ivy Doris WADE…’

But Ivy died before her husband – and Victor’s sons Richard and Paul argued those words meant the remaining estate was held for the specific purpose of caring for their mother.

Dianne McKenney pictured with her mother Ivy (Dolly) Wade

With Ivy gone, they argued, that purpose could no longer be fulfilled and the gift had failed, meaning the law rather than Victor’s will should determine who inherited the remaining estate.

Dianne disagreed, maintaining her father intended her to inherit the remainder of his estate outright. Her position was also consistent with an earlier will Victor had made in 2014, which left his entire estate to Ivy but provided that if she died before him, the estate would instead go to Dianne.

She also asked the court, as an alternative, to correct the wording of the will to better reflect what she argued her father intended.

The court heard Dianne had cared for her mother for ‘all of her adult life’.

Victor’s nephew Edward also claimed his uncle had explained why he wanted Dianne to receive the bulk of his estate.

According to Edward, Victor said: ‘Dianne has been looking after me and her mother for a very long time and has done a lot more than I realised, long before her mother got sick… I couldn’t have gotten a better daughter.’

Edward also claimed that Victor told him: ‘I have given the boys plenty over the years and they haven’t needed for anything. They now lead their own lives and have done well.’

Victor ultimately left each of his three sons, Richard, Gary and Paul, $5,000 each.

He also prepared letters explaining his decisions, saying he had already provided significantly for the three men during his lifetime.

In a letter to Dianne, Victor wrote that he had provided for her three brothers and had therefore left her financially provided for ‘for the work, care, & support you have provided your mother and myself over our lifetime’.

Paul’s son, Sean Wade, 41, was left nothing in his grandfather’s will, with Victor allegedly expressing a particularly dim view of his grandson.

Edward claimed Victor had said of Sean: ‘He’s been more trouble than he’s worth to Dolly and me.’

A note prepared for Sean stated: ‘This letter is to inform you that I have not provided you anything in my last will and testament. I’ve provided free Board and Lodging when you were left with me and my wife when you’re younger. You have not in any way provided in any contribution to my assets.’

However, Edward’s evidence about his conversations with Victor came under significant scrutiny during the proceedings and its reliability was challenged.

The court battle erupted around the first anniversary of Victor’s death. Within two days, Richard, Paul and Paul’s son Sean each launched family provision claims against the estate.

Dianne subsequently commenced her own proceedings on December 20, 2024, seeking to have her father’s will formally recognised by the court.

Justice Meek noted the curious relationship between Wade family milestones and the litigation, with the hearing of the separate dispute even falling on Dianne’s 70th birthday.

Richard’s family provision claim was later discontinued, while the judgment indicates other litigation remained unresolved.

Justice Meek ultimately ruled in Dianne’s favour on the central dispute, finding she was entitled to the remainder of her father’s estate outright.

He rejected the argument that the gift had failed and that those assets should instead pass under intestacy laws.

The estate was ordered to pay Dianne’s legal costs on an indemnity basis.

In another unusual flourish, Justice Meek observed that homemade wills ‘notoriously provide courts with challenges regarding construction’, noting they frequently contain imprecise language and colloquialisms.

Victor’s estate included his Murwillumbah home, valued at $1million, another block of land valued at $2.725million, about $60,000 worth of farm equipment, Telstra shares, a Bendigo Bank retirement account and a Toyota Camry valued at just $500.

The second block of land had apparently featured in another of Victor’s ambitions.

Edward claimed his uncle had spoken for decades about using it for a ‘Pensioner Project’, telling him: ‘if I am able, I want to build housing units solely for pensioners there on the block as no one looks after pensioners.’

Despite determining the dispute over the meaning of Victor’s will, Justice Meek acknowledged the decision might not bring the Wade family’s broader legal battles to an end.

‘Richard’s family provision claim has now been discontinued. It remains to be seen whether the balance of the litigation which has been a feature of the family’s current life will be in any way quelled by this separate determination of issues, such that future family anniversaries will be less litigiously afflicted.’