Tricia Phillips cared for the animals of a wealthy Canterbury man for year, but was suddenly cut out of his will.

Mike and Charmaine Smith loved animals so much, every year they would throw a birthday party – complete with cake – for their pet pig, Charlotte.

They had no children and Charmaine had a terminal lung disease, so their animals – dogs, cats, geese, 120 sheep – provided great comfort.

So much so that in 2011, Mike went to the offices of Russell Moon and Fail in Ashburton and signed a will gifting $50,000 to the SPCA to care for the animals after his death.



"None of the animals are to be put down or slaughtered ... the funds are to ensure they are looked after until good homes are found," the will stated, adding that he didn't want his dogs to be separated "and my geese are to be donated to a wildlife reserve".



The rest of his estate – he'd been director and shareholder of his family firm Smith Seeds – was to go to various charities, including the World Wildlife Fund, Red Cross, World Vision and Salvation Army.



Charmaine died in May 2014, aged 46, having battled the chronic lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans most of her adult life. She and Mike had been married 28 years.







Charmaine Smith was in a wheelchair towards the end of her life.



Mike had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer – he hadn't smoked – at the end of 2012.



On April 22 last year he returned to his lawyers – just a day before flying to Mexico in a desperate last bid to prolong his life with Vitamin C treatment – and signed a new will, much different to the last. It made no mention of animals or charities.



Instead, the sole beneficiary was his new wife, Corrine, whom he had met on an internet dating site a few weeks after Charmaine's death.



Other family and friends would inherit his estate but only if Corrine died before him.

Iain McGregor Tricia Phillips is challenging the will of her friend Mike Smith, after everything was left to a woman he'd only recently married.

Six weeks after signing the new will Mike died, aged 53.

THE PET SITTER

﻿Tricia Phillips, 60, met Mike and Charmaine in 2001, when she answered their ad for a house and pet sitter. "We were so much alike with our love of animals. Probably for some people it was a bit crazy, because we were pretty over the top," says Phillips, an IHC carer.



She would housesit for the couple at their 5-hectare spread near Ashburton while they travelled overseas, taking time off work to care for the animals.



In 2013 the couple bought a new property near Rolleston, Christchurch, to be closer to medical treatment.



The couple invited Phillips to join them and she lived in a separate flat on the property, continuing to care for the animals and the couple as their health deteriorated.



"It was really a case of who was gonna [die] first."



Shortly after Charmaine's death, Phillips says, Mike told her he'd started talking to women on internet dating sites.



"It seemed totally out of character for Mike, he was so devoted to Charmaine, and he knew he was dying."

Iain McGregor Corrine Hanna, now Smith, married a terminally ill Mike Smith last year.

One of the women he met was Corrine Hanna, an administrator at AgResearch in Hamilton. After a while she flew down to visit Mike at the Rolleston property.

Property records show that in February last year Mike bought a property near Te Awamutu for $520,000, which Corrine's parents moved into.

The following month, Mike and Corrine were married in Waikato.

Staff photographer Phillips and the Smiths shared a love of animals. Here she is pictured with an alpaca at her rented Canterbury property.

Phillips says when Mike was first diagnosed with cancer in 2012 he was given only about a year to live. "It was already in his bones."

But he was still alive in April, 2015 and emailed Russell Moon and Fail estates manager Bruce Day saying he was travelling overseas and had better sign a new will.

Phillips believes the Mexican trip was a waste of time – that Mike was in the final stages of his life.



"Mike got this idea that juices ... and vitamin C treatments might cure him, but by that time he was critically ill."







Mike and Charmaine when they first got together.



FATE OF THE SHEEP



According to Phillips, the day Mike and Corrine flew to Mexico, Mike came to her with some big news – he was leaving the Ashburton property where they had first lived, valued at $820,000, and its contents to her.



"He told me I never had to worry again because that was a home for myself, my pets and his pets."



Phillips says she was stunned by Mike's generosity. "I was overcome and hugged him."



She emailed him after he left: "I can't believe that you would do that for me and the pets. I have been worried about where I would go ... as I've always said I would have to live in the car with the dogs etc as I couldn't ever part with them."

Iain McGregor One of Mike's geese at his Ashburton property, which is vacant and become overgrown.

Mike wrote back asking after his animals, saying he hoped to come home in "better shape than when I left" and saying he missed Phillips, his "special friend".

The couple stayed in Mexico for about a month but the treatment was unsuccessful.

The day after he returned to Christchurch, Mike was admitted to hospital and died a few days later. A picture taken at the funeral home shows his beloved "girls" - 13-year-old dogs Shiloh and Rocket, snuggling in the coffin.

Staff photographer The property at Rolleston near Christchurch is now for sale.

According to Phillips, Corrine and Mike's father, Ross, organised for a truck to come and pick up the sheep and for the other animals to be sent to various new homes. The contents of the Ashburton property were cleared out and items put on TradeMe, she says.

"They were going to take the sheep to slaughter. I said 'No, Mike and I had talked about it in the hospital and they'd be coming to [Ashburton] with me. Corrine said 'No, Ashburton's being leased out'."

In a text message to Phillips around this time, Ross Smith wrote: "Don't bother with the sheep. We will look after them and arrange their departure. They are part of the estate and will be found a new home. No reply [to this message] will change the situation."

Phillips insists the sheep were being sent to the works and says she launched a desperate plea on Facebook. "A woman from an animal rescue place contacted me and said she would take them. I was so happy."

Mike Smith died of cancer aged just 53.

After Mike's funeral Corrine gave Phillips the bad news – under the terms of the will, the Ashburton property would only have gone to her if Corrine had died first.

"I was shocked, that's not what Mike told me," Phillips says.

The will appointed Corrine and Ross Smith executors and trustees. The estate was substantial, although mostly tied up in the Ashburton, Rolleston and Waikato properties. Together they were valued at $2.33m, with mortgages totalling $655,000.

Mike also left $77,000 in cash and shares.

Phillips was served with court papers ordering her to leave the Rolleston property.

She has instructed a lawyer to investigate whether she can make a claim against the estate on the grounds of testamentary promise. A private investigator has been hired.

Approached at the Rolleston property, which is now on the market, Corrine said she had no comment and referred questions to Day.

Bruce Day said Corrine regarded it as a private matter to be kept confidential. "The estate does not accept that there was any testamentary promise made," he said.

He did not respond to questions about Mike's new will.

Ross Smith ​believes Phillips has done "damage" with her actions. "It's just been chaotic. She's done everything she could to create problems. We had to have her evicted. I don't know how many dogs she had in that place – we've had to re-do carpets."

He says Corrine and his son were in love. "She took him to Mexico. It didn't work but it gave him some additional time with Corrine – she was magic in looking after him."

Charmaine's brother, Paul Hammond, indicated he was not happy with the way things had played out but declined to comment, as did Mike's brother and fellow Smith Seed director Grant.

Sheryl Cooke, who sold the Rolleston place to Mike, says he told her he was renovating the flat on the property especially for Phillips, his wife's caregiver and companion. "He said there would always be a house for her."

Phillips says she is not motivated by the property or money. "I'm a very independent person, I look after myself."

She says Corrine and Ross Smith have tried to claim that she wasn't close to Mike and Charmaine, pointing out that she doesn't appear in photos and didn't attend family functions. That's because she preferred to stay in the background and look after the property while they were socialising or travelling, Phillips says.

Charmaine told her on her deathbed that their fortune was to go to charity and animal organisations, Phillips says, and she's contesting the will in her friend's memory.

"She trusted Mike to do what they had decided. She would be absolutely horrified and devastated."