Success for woman who challenged sister's will

THE sister of a deceased multi-millionairess has won a court battle to stop the sale of her home in Edinburgh's New Town, after challenging a will altered in the days before her death.

Elizabeth Smyth maintains that her late sister Deirdre Romanes, the managing director of a newspaper group, executed new deeds over the disposal of her fortune while she was "weak and facile". She is now seeking to have set aside the new, altered will covering the estate of her late sister, who died at the age of 60 in May last year, in an action at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Mrs Smyth, of County Meath, in Ireland, earlier secured an order prohibiting executors of Mrs Romanes' estate from selling or disposing of property in Heriot Row and Jamaica Street Lane, in Edinburgh, valued at 2.25 million. A challenge seeking to lift the interim interdict was rejected by three civil appeal judges on Friday.

Divorcee Mrs Romanes left a fortune valued at more than 4.1m.