Mother leaves all her £486,000 fortune to animal charities after row with daughter about the name of her grandchild
By JOHN STEVENS
Heather Ilott, pictured, is challenging her mother Melita Jackson's £486,000 will, which was left to animal charities
A motherleft everything she had to animal charities after falling out with her only daughter over the naming of her child, a court heard.
Melita Jackson decided to write her daughter out of her £486,000 will after she called her fifth child Ellen – the name of a sister-in-law Mrs Jackson did not like.
Heather Ilott, 50, who says her mother did not even support the charities, is challenging the will in the Court of Appeal.
John Collins, representing Mrs Ilott, said: ‘It is a picture of irrationality. It was not because she supported the charities, but simply out of spite.’
Mrs Ilott first fell out with her mother in the late 1970s after leaving the family home in the middle of the night to live with her boyfriend and his parents when she was only 17.
Her mother disapproved of the boyfriend – and the mother and daughter became completely separated – Mrs Ilott’s mother was not even invited to the couple’s wedding in 1983. Apart from brief reconciliations, they barely spoke again before the widow died at 70.
The most recent reconciliation came after a chance meeting at a dentist’s surgery in 1999. Mrs Ilott apologised to her mother, but they fell out again as the mother was upset over the child’s name. Mrs Jackson had asked her daughter to choose another name.
In 2002, the mother made her last will, with a letter to explain why she had disinherited her only daughter, referring to the fact that she had walked out of her home in 1978.
And in 2004, Mrs Jackson died, leaving all her money to The Blue Cross, RSPB and the RSPCA.
Her daughter, of Great Munden, Hertfordshire, first challenged the will under the Inheritance Act. A district judge found it did not make reasonable provision for her and ordered that she should have £50,000 from the estate.
Mrs Ilott, who is unemployed, asked the High Court to increase the sum, but the charities challenged the appeal, leaving her with nothing.
Mrs Jackson, who died in 2004, left all her money to organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Yesterday the appeal judges heard how Mrs Ilott, whose children are aged 14 to 27, needed money and had no earning capacity and no pension. She was unable to make any provision for her future, Mr Collins said.
‘The whole purpose of the Inheritance Act was to safeguard close members of the family against unreasonable provision from the deceased’s estate.’
He argued that it was ‘unreasonable’ for Mrs Jackson to have left her daughter, who depended on a family income of £14,000 in 2007, out of her will when she is in such financial need.
But lawyers for the three charities say Mrs Ilott and her husband made ‘lifestyle choices’ – including having five children – which left them in financial difficulty.
Arguing that the appeal should be dismissed, they said Mrs Ilott had managed to live independently of her mother for 26 years and could not now expect maintenance.
Outside court, James Aspden, representing the charities, said: ‘The charities involved are very grateful to Mrs Jackson for choosing to remember the needs of animals and wild birds in her will. On legal advice, they are continuing to support her wishes.’
The judges reserved their ruling to a later date.
