An inheritance dispute involving a house, a parrot and a parakeet has been resolved in favour of the man charged with looking after the birds, Today’s Wills and Probate reports.
The self-proclaimed Lord Brett McLean claimed his late mother’s £300,000 house, which he said she left him so that he could look after her parrot and parakeet after she died. However, McLean’s step-siblings took him to court in a bid to try to get him to split the inheritance, both the house and the rest of his mother’s wealth.
However, the court found in his favour.
Dispute over mother’s estate
Maureen McLean died in 2019 and ever since then, McLean has been in dispute over his mother’s estate. The will was changed 11 days before she died. Previously, she had stated she wanted the inheritance to be split equally but in the new version, she removed all the step-siblings.
Maureen McLean and her husband, Reginald McLean, originally made wills in 2017, where all four children were entitled to an equal share of their parent and step-parent’s estate. The couple informed the four of their intentions through letters.
The court heard that Reginald had trusted his wife and said there was no way she would exclude the children from the inheritance after he died. However, she changed her will in 2019, leaving everything to Lord Brett McLean.
Would not alter wills
The other siblings argued that the will written in 2017 was “mutual in nature” and that Reginald and Maureen had agreed that neither would revoke or alter the terms of the wills made, according to their lawyer.
He described it as a “contractual arrangement” to the effect that neither would later change their will without informing or after the death of the other.
In a written submission to the court, Lord Brett argued that his mother had left her entire estate to her only biological son to allow him to continue to care for her “green Amazonian orange-winged parrot and yellow and orange jenday (parakeet)” and to continue providing housing for him.
Mother’s will
She had done this, he said, because the other claimants owned their own properties and would benefit from their mother’s will when the time arrived, whereas he did not have a property or a family and had devoted his life to caring for his parents.
This allowed her to continue providing for and protecting her son after she was gone.
Judge Graeme Robertson found that Brett McLean had “ascribed opinions to his mother that I suspect are in fact his own”. Nevertheless, he concluded that when the original wills were drawn up, Maureen and Reginald had not contemplated a situation where either would wish to change
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