After 25 years and more than 30,000 wills, Robert and Gill Phipps have turned life’s most uncomfortable task into a full-time job—and an endless source of strange stories. The couple runs Pembroke Will Writers from Gillingham, Kent, a family business they launched in 2000 with a secondhand laptop and a printer in their dining room.
They’ve helped clients from all walks of life, including someone with over $108 million to pass down. But the wildest moments often come from unexpected places. Robert once accepted a live crab as partial payment from a seafood-loving client who was short on cash.
“It had elastic bands around its claws,” he told the New York Post. “I felt so bad for it, so I drove it down to Sharp’s Green and released it into the sea.” Before doing so, he called the police—just in case anyone saw him lurking near the water and assumed something illegal was going on.
Their work is full of strange requests, many of which bump up against the limits of the law. One woman tried to prevent her sons from spending their inheritance on “fast cars and fast women.” Robert explained that vague moral conditions don’t hold up in court. “Who defines fast women?” he said. “It just creates endless legal arguments.”
These Are The Wildest Things People Have Put in Their Wills
Other clients have asked for inheritance workarounds that don’t pass legal scrutiny—like a beneficiary who asked for funds to be redirected to a sibling’s account, likely to avoid benefit restrictions. “You have to pay the inheritance directly to the person entitled,” Robert said. “There’s no legal way around that.”
Since the pandemic, the Phippses have also seen a rise in people challenging wills out of desperation. Robert says this almost never succeeds, but it’s becoming more common as financial pressures grow. “They know they’ve got no real chance of winning. But they try anyway.”
For Robert, who served in the Royal Navy and worked as a police officer before writing wills, the emotional side of the job is just as important as the legal side. His background helps him stay calm with clients navigating grief, money, and difficult decisions.
He encourages families—especially those with second marriages or stepchildren—to get everything in writing. “The law only follows the bloodline,” he said. “If it’s not in your will, the people you love might get nothing.”
And after 30,000 wills, Robert says he’s still not done collecting stories. “One day, our kids will take over,” he said. “And I’m sure they’ll have their own funny ones to tell.”
The post The Wildest Things People Have Put in Their Wills, According to a Professional appeared first on VICE.
