John Coll: Helpless against a crooked executor

Our mortal powerlessness

Yesterday marked a decade since the passing of my friend and mentor John Coll. As a blogger, I would normally have written something to commemorate and memorialise the day. The blog I wrote last year was meant for yesterday, I was a year off.

Blog - John Coll: Friend, Mentor, Gentleman – January 2015

Blog - John Coll: Calling on Herbert Dzinotyiweyi to fulfil his wishes – December 2013

Much as I want to reflect on our friendship, there are issues of understanding trust and the powerlessness of keeping that trust when you are no longer in the picture.

It brings to mind when Queen Elizabeth II gave her Christmas message desiring that the Duchess of Cornwall as the spouse of the Prince of Wales become the Queen Consort when he assumes the throne. That wish lasted until the coronation of King Charles III when he as king regnant decided his consort would be crowned Queen.

The clear message there is that regardless of the desires of the much-loved Queen, once she joined her ancestors, the powerful effect of her determination had gone with her passing. There is only one monarch in a kingdom and this time, it was Charles III, we had left the Second Elizabethan era for the new Carolean age from the 8th of September 2022.

The danger of a sole executor

In the affairs of life, we exercise both choice and control to varying extents, our presence enables us to order, arrange, and challenge situations to align with our liking and expectations. However, in our passing, where we cannot exercise control or authority, we rely on trusted persons to fulfil our wills, testaments and bequeaths.

There is a clear basis for an executor of an estate and there is law and precept that governs that responsibility, yet it can be abused. John chose the ‘trusted’ financial manager of his company to execute his will, whether it would have been prudent to distribute that responsibility seeing that John had been an employer of labour and skill for decades is another thing.

When John passed on, the primary elements of his will, such as his funeral and the disposal of his estate were followed through and seemingly completed quite promptly. The other part of his will which included bequests to 10 individuals, mostly outside the UK did not get fulfilment.

Once the executor had seen the largesse of the estate the trust reposed in him evaporated into avarice and over years, he schemed to transfer the full value of the estate after probate of about £780,000 to himself. He might have siphoned it out of the country or gambled it away, but he also had another plan, for he had citizenship of Zimbabwe and naturalisation in the UK.

I was onto him in 2019 when I learnt that most beneficiaries of John’s will had not been informed, and those who should have known were kept from prying because the executor feigned complexity of managing the estate and the required taxes.

He escaped accountability and justice

As I was not a beneficiary, I could only inform and instigate in the hope that John’s wishes would be fulfilled, and accountability is looked for as pertains to the fiduciary duty of an executor. Sadly, the police mishandled the situation and allowed the executor a window of opportunity to escape justice leaving the beneficiaries bilked of consequential resources that could have been impactful on their lives if John’s wishes had been conducted.

The lesson here is not only in choosing a trusted lieutenant or friend to execute your estate, especially in the absence of close relations to do the same but in distributing that responsibility so that the executors can hold each other accountable and true to the requirements of the testator.

Whether John had any insight into the character or integrity of his executor, one cannot tell, but with hindsight, the executor was anything but trustworthy. Mortal man is at a loss, for a will has no enforcement until the person is confirmed dead and the same person is powerless to ensure that their will is totally implemented according to the spirit and the letter of will.

A thought on accountable executors

As a man of faith, one of the reasons why Jesus Christ had to rise again from the dead was that the will for man to have eternal life and a relationship with God came into force with His death and the shedding of His blood for our sins. He rose again to ensure his testament was followed completely, that in accepting His sacrifice on the cross and declaring Him Lord, He confers the same sonship He has with God the Father on us too.

Imagine if, at the implementation of a will, the testator had the means to ensure every jot and title of their will was fully done without any challenge to the executor or resorting to the courts to redefine or alter your intention, purpose, and desire. Trust is a fleeting commodity, when it comes to executing a will, please ensure you have built extensive accountability into the process.

It is not John’s fault that things turned out this way, I never had reason to question either his instinct or his judgment when he was alive, people change and when it comes to money and worse still, the love of money, it is the root of all evil, the unconscionable evil that consumed Herbert Dzinotyiweyi.

John Coll: Calling on Herbert Dzinotyiweyi to fulfil his wishes

How we learnt of it

9 years ago, a very dear friend, John Alexander Coll passed on, unfortunately, many of us who knew him did not learn of his passing until almost a month after he had gone. The executor John chose to manage his estate and contacted me late on the 21^st of January 2015 and expected a response from me by the 23^rd of January 2015 for the funeral planned for the 30^th of January 2015.

This presented a difficulty for many who would have liked to attend John’s funeral, we found a circle of friends and eventually were able to have someone in London represent those of us who would have had to travel from afar to honour this amazing man.

The executor of John’s estate

Sadly, 9 years on, John’s estate and issues have not been resolved as he had intended, his executor Herbert Dzinotyiweyi who used to handle the accounts for the company Connection Software that John founded through the years gave everyone the impression that the estate was a very complex and tax intensive issue, it probably was.

Herbert Dzinotyiweyi who for a while lived in the UK also has Zimbabwe roots and seems to have ensconced himself beyond the reach of scrutiny of his fiduciary obligations to the beneficiaries of John’s estate.

It was in early 2019 that I acquired details of John’s will and the probate that had 10 beneficiaries once the core of the estate had been liquidated, yielding almost £800,000 which if it were judiciously divided amongst those to whom John bequeathed a largesse would have been consequential and life-changing for each of them, most located in Zimbabwe where he once had interests and in South Africa.

Our engagement with Herbert Dzinotyiweyi

I was able to gather all the beneficiaries in conference a few times in 2019 into 2020, some of whom at the time that I contacted them were unaware that John Coll had made a generous bequest to their names.

We did Herbert Dzinotyiweyi to attend some of those conferences from the safety of Zimbabwe, at which no determination was gained or made until he removed himself from the conference groups as if he had no further obligations as executor. Suspicions arose that a professional forensic analysis of the moneys accrued from the estate after probate determined that money had gone, it had not gone to any of John Coll’s intended beneficiaries.

Just account for the estate

Whilst I do not intend to impugn Herbert Dzinotyiweyi’s name, some questions need answering; an explanation as to why John’s estate that made probate in June 2015 has still not been afforded the wishes of the testator, and there is a possible dereliction of responsibility as executor that might border on criminal enterprise, but this is not to accuse anyone.

A dead man cannot fight for his good intentions and wishes, which is why they trust someone or people to administer their estate when they are gone. The fact that John’s registered will was made and witnessed just 5 days before he passed on might have limited the scope of persons to elect as executors of his will. He cannot have thought that the person he selected would not expeditiously manage his estate and adhere fully to his generous desires, 9 years on.

Pattern or sheer coincidence?

I know this is not what John intended and I can only hope that action and justice for what John Coll desired is finalised by the time of the 10^th anniversary of his passing and Herbert Dzinotyiweyi willingly accounts for his superintending of John Alexander Coll’s estate as executor.

The friends of John Coll who remember him fondly as an extraordinary person of consequence in innumerable ways will continue to agitate for the full realisation of his wishes. The matter is not closed by any stretch of the imagination. May John Coll continue to rest in peace.

NB: I am not a beneficiary of John’s will, I am a friend of John’s, we met in mid-1994. Obviously, I will review and edit this blog once all of John’s wishes are fulfilled as he intended.

Meanwhile, a quick search for Herbert Dzinotyiweyi would suggest he has run into some trouble. One cannot speculate on pattern or behaviour, but it is an interesting development to discover today. [ZimNow: Harare man in court over residential stand scam]

Blog - John Coll: Friend, Mentor, Gentleman (January 2015)